Imperium: Betrayal: Book One in the Imperium Trilogy

by Paul M Calvert

  “What do I do now, Vimes?”

  “Get behind it and stand still with your back to the statue,” came the reply.

  “But then I won’t be able to see them coming,” she thought back furiously but did as he instructed. Immediately she did so, Christine felt the familiar touch of smart-metal begin forming around her lower body. For an instant, she wondered if Vimes had deliberately trapped her and was in on the ambush, but felt guilty when she realised what was happening. Unfortunately, it was going to take time for the armour to fully form around her and she hoped she had enough.

  “Is this one of the secrets you and Alexander put in place after the revolt?” she asked Vimes.

  “What do you think, Christine?” came the reply, his voice sounding rather more pleased with itself than usual. “Rather than throw all the old statues out we decided to turn them into something useful.”

  At that moment, she heard her attacker’s force their way into the small clearing and stop, listening out for where she might have gone. Vimes was relaying a view of the scene to her via the implant and she knew she had just run out of luck for the suit wouldn’t form in time.

  All the attackers were dressed in black skin-tight mesh costumes, obviously concealed beneath their normal clothes which were discarded once the ambush started. Instead of powered weapons, each carried two large combat knives of ordinary metal, so not to be detected by Palace security scanners. Using heat sensors to trace her footprints to the statue, six of them approached it slowly, three on either side. Of the remaining four who were acting as backup, one checked a hand-held tracking device which was obviously unaffected by the jamming.

  Bracing herself for a brief and ultimately futile fight, she jumped, just like her attackers, when Francis leapt out from a tree behind the four, screaming at the top of his lungs, brandishing a long scythe as if it was a quarterstaff. He brought it down with a satisfying crack on the nearest neck before swinging it to the left and taking out another of the startled assassins before he could react. The remaining eight turned immediately towards the noise and interruption, gaining Christine a few more precious seconds for the suit to form. They moved cautiously towards Francis, extending their blades in readiness for the kill.

  Christine could see De’ath was now in trouble, for they moved as one which indicated they were used to attacking in concert. Francis disregarded the risk and selected his next target, changing his grip on the scythe so that it now extended five foot in front of him, taking aim for the face of the nearest attacker, forcing him to move back or lose an eye.

  Watching the scene through Vimes, Christine found herself mirroring the moves Francis was making. The way he handled the staff made it look as if it weighed only a few pounds, spinning and weaving it in a protective arc in front of him. Unable to get any closer without being struck, two of the attackers each threw one of their knives at him. Unable to dodge both, Francis was struck below his left clavicle, the ultra-sharp blade passing through his body until stopped by the hilt, its tip protruding slightly from his back. The pain staggered Francis for a second, then his berserker rage took over. He reached up with his right hand to grasp the handle and in one fluid movement pulled it free before throwing it straight back, taking one of them in the eye, who dropped to the floor like a stone. Rushing forward, Francis engaged the remaining attacker’s all at once, throwing himself at them and striking out right and left, heedless of the danger to himself.

  Christine watched, mesmerised, until a helmet finally formed over her head and the familiar control suite of an exo-suit lit up in front of her vision, signifying the armour was ready and breaking her attention from the fight. So as not to distract her, Vimes cancelled the live feed of the fight through her implant. Weapon read-outs from the suit confirmed a full load, including non-lethal. Deciding at least one prisoner was needed for interrogation, in tribute to Francis she chose the same type of weapon and extruded a five-foot long smart-metal quarter-staff, heavily weighted at either end, in preference to a sword or rail-gun.

  Christine stepped to her left and around from behind the statue, the night vision of her helmet providing a daylight clear view of everything in the area. Two more of the black-clad assassins were down, one of them still locked on the ground in an embrace of death with Francis.

  “Let’s see how you like it,” boomed out Christine’s amplified voice as she emerged from behind the statue.

  The four remaining attackers spun around, their faces registering shock and surprise at this sudden change in their fortunes. One quickly looked down at his knives and then back to the exo-suite before deciding to attack. Before he’d moved five paces, Christine crouched down, her staff sweeping down and away, simultaneously taking out both of his legs and breaking them. He howled and fell heavily, clutching his ruined shins. She sprung forward before any of the others could move, taking another attacker between the legs with a crack that indicated a broken pelvis or worse. His agonised scream sounded loud in her helmet. Her suit picked up movement behind and to the left, so she ducked down, again sweeping the staff in an arc at knee height from right to left, toppling another attacker to the floor.

  Straightening up, she saw the last one turn tail and run. The attacker she’d just hit was trying to get back up, still clutching his two knives, so Christine brought the bulbous end of her staff down hard into his temple, the skull collapsing and shattering under the impact, grey brain matter spraying into the air. With enough prisoners now disabled for interrogation she had no wish to chase after the fleeing attacker, so Christine braced her suit and with a thunderous roar of displaced air, simply sprayed the entire area of the forest in the direction he’d taken with anti-personnel flechettes from the back of both gauntlets. Within seconds the air was full of splintered wood and leaf debris, as a large number of trees simply exploded and toppled, one narrowly missing the now much-diminished statue of Admiral Rose. Vimes confirmed the kill.

  Moving around the clearing she dealt each of the survivors a blow to the head. Knocked unconscious they couldn’t take their own lives and were unable to resist as she injected each of them with a large dose of sedatives from her suits pharmacological suite. Vimes confirmed the drugs would still be effective despite their age, having been stored in stasis within the statue.

  Moving over to Francis’ body, she sadly disentangled him from the dead assassin but was delighted to see he was still alive. Examining him quickly, she noted he was bleeding badly from several deep slashes and puncture wounds on his arms, chest and stomach in addition to the stab to his shoulder. Taking a few moments to spray them all with triage dressings, infused with healing factors and short-lived nanites from her suit, she carried him over to the trunk of a large tree and propped him against it, finally injecting him with a large dose of battlefield nanites for any internal injuries. With nothing more that she could currently do for him until she broke through the jamming, Christine spoke to Vimes.

  “How are you getting on with getting through the interference?” she queried, “I would feel happier with several dozen Marines around me at this point.”

  “I’ve pinpointed it to the administrative offices of Sector 12, along with major disturbances in the Palace offices of ten other Sectors. The jamming device will need to be physically destroyed before I can contact anyone else. It’s fortunate that your link to me works on a different channel to any of the others and was immune to its effects. I’m coordinating the defence of your private quarters and that of the Palace. Several hundred armoured attackers are trying to kill the Ambassadors from numerous Sectors, with varying degrees of success. I currently have most of them contained until help arrives. As to the Marines, I expect them here at the Palace very soon for they would have realised something was wrong the moment communication was lost with the Palace.”

  With the immediate threat to her life over and nothing more she could do for Francis, she didn’t hesitate and headed back towards the Palace, running as fast as the suit would allow, powering throug
h the trees and bushes with ease. As she ran, and the suit re-absorbed the fighting staff, Christine asked Vimes what Sector the attackers had come from but was not surprised to learn they too were from Sector 12. It was apparent to Christine that all of the Sectors that had provided the financial information were registering disturbances in their Palace offices. First Alexander, now her. It couldn’t be coincidence that Frederick had asked for Alexander’s help and Christine hoped she would be able to contact her husband before he led his ships into a trap, thankful Adam was safely out of harm’s way.

  “Can’t you use your forces to take out the jammer?” she asked Vimes.

  “No Christine, all of my forces were destroyed in that area and the others are tied up in close combat elsewhere.”

  Speeding across the Palace grounds, Vime’s presented a tactical display for her to see, showing what areas of the Palace were affected.

  “Christine, my defences are containing the threats in all of the areas except for Sector 12 where they have been destroyed by armoured troops. Concentrate on this area.”

  Nearing the Palace buildings, several smart-metal statues took station alongside her, obviously under the control of Vimes and part of the hidden defences. Glancing to her left, one of the statues winked. Despite herself and the seriousness of the moment she couldn’t stop from laughing out loud into her helmet. Two minutes later they reached the entrance to the Administrative block and crashed through the large, ornamental doors and into the main foyer. Startled by the events going on in the Palace and unsure what to do, nervous staff began asking questions before her amplified voice silenced them with a curt instruction.

  “Not now. Take cover and stay here until the Marines come, then do as they tell you without question. Do you all understand?” she queried.

  Grateful nods indicated they understood, so she turned and instructed one of the statues to stand watch over the civilian staff. Vimes didn’t argue, knowing her concern for their safety was genuine. Having an intimate knowledge of the Palace, she dismissed the map Vimes was displaying in her helmet and began taking the stairs to the third floor of the building, four steps at a time, not wishing to risk getting trapped in a tube. She slowed on reaching the set of doors marking the third floor and sent the remaining statue ahead into the long corridor which ran the entire length of the Palace. Before going further, Christine took a few moments to form a large shield across her left arm and a three-foot long katana blade for her right. For close in fighting, a series of hooked blades formed along her shins and forearms.

  Following behind her escort, she watched the erstwhile smart metal statue change form and transform into an exact duplicate of her own suit. One hundred yards ahead of them, along the vaulted corridor, lay the impressive offices of Sector 12. The enhanced sensors of her suit picked up the sound of fighting nearby in the other Sector Offices and the floor ahead of her was devoid of its usual statuary. The normally pristine marble walls displayed numerous signs of blast and flechette damage and a number of the incredibly strong smart metal windows had been broken and were unable to re-form. She instantly counted twenty-two armoured figures lying broken and twisted on the floor alongside a similar number of broken statues, some barely recognisable. Running along the wide, imposing corridor now almost devoid of upright statuary, Vimes indicated this was his handiwork.

  “Another one of Alexander’s ideas, Christine. Replace statues and sculpture with smart-metal programmed to link into the Palace’s internal defences under my direct control. Using them as expendable shock troops I was able to slow down the attack. None of them were expecting the statuary to start fighting them.”

  Half-way to Sector 12’s entrance, two armoured figures stepped out into the hall, firing a stream of accelerated flechettes in their direction. Using the now disintegrating statue in front of her as a partial shield, together they closed the distance between themselves and the attackers. Almost there, the faithful statue finally ceased to operate under the relentless onslaught of flechettes, and fell heavily to the floor.

  Jumping over the inert statue and closing the last few yards, her physical shield also began to disintegrate from the impact of hundreds of flechettes, their kinetic energy slowing her forward momentum. Despite this, she was able to maintain it long enough to close with them. Moments before contact the two armoured figures switched over to close combat mode themselves, the armoured suit on her right swinging a wicked downward blow towards her head with the sword held in its left hand. Thankfully, he telegraphed the move and she was able to easily block it with her own sword. Keeping her shield between herself and the second opponent, she rammed its sharpened edge diagonally into the first attacker’s faceplate. Propelled by all the force her augmented muscles could generate it cut through the smart-metal visor and into the face behind, driving deep into skull and brain.

  To her left, the second fighter used his own shield to slice down onto Christine’s extended left arm, hoping to cut it off. Anticipating the blow, she released her shield and allowed the blows momentum to drive her arm down, before swinging the sword in her right hand horizontally into his neck, the mono-molecular blade of her katana slicing through and severing the head in one move. Not wishing to waste any motion, Christine gracefully turned the movement into a three hundred and sixty-degree spin, looking for other targets.

  Satisfied none remained in the corridor, she lifted one of the armoured bodies above her head and heaved it through the Sectors entrance doors, shattering the wood and allowing her to see inside. Reassured no-one else was in the doorway, she accelerated her suit forward, smashing through the wall to the left of it, hoping to catch off-guard anyone waiting to the side that might be looking to ambush her. Inside, desks and chairs littered the floor, along with a number of bodies.

  “Not all of them were in on the plot then,” she thought to Vines, who’d kept quiet during the brief fight so as not to distract her.

  “No Christine, many of them remained loyal. Jammer’s to the left, in the Ambassadors room.”

  Bracing her suit, she called up her rail-gun, dialling in heavy calibre flechettes before using rapid fire to send a stream of hypervelocity slugs through the wall and into the office, shredding the jammer and anything else inside, then passing through several more walls before stopping. Immediately the jamming was broken, a stream of information came in; urgent enquiries from her Bodyguard, private staff and the naval vessels in orbit. Vimes handled all of these, allowing her to check on the bodies littering the offices for signs of life.

  Less than a minute later, a large shuttle suddenly blocked out the view through the window, which melted away to allow several squads of her personal Bodyguard to jump across into the room, led by Master Sergeant Plewa. They quickly fanned out through the other rooms, checking for bodies or survivors. Plewa saluted and urged her to follow him back to the shuttle but Christine shook her head. Now she was protected by her Bodyguard, she took a moment to review how the fighting was going in the rest of the Palace. Dozens of shuttles had already arrived, with more in transit, disgorging her Bodyguard throughout the Palace where they were assisting the internal defences in containing, then mopping up, the pockets of resistance which had managed to hold out against Vimes’ surprise defences.

  Assessing the situation, Christine instructed Plewa to escort her back to her private quarters, along with a dozen of his men. Still not wishing to risk a tube, they ran along the main corridor running the entire length of the Palace, separating the coast-facing living quarters at the front from the administrative offices overlooking the gardens and grounds to the rear. In less than a minute, they reached the entrance to her private apartments. Nearly two dozen armoured figures lay strewn around the entrance, their suits either blasted apart or burned through by high-intensity beams. The floor and walls bore mute testimony to the ferocity of Vimes’ defences.

  Christine gave Plewa instructions to retrieve the sleeping would-be assassins from the forest, then hand them over to the IIS for questio
ning. After that, if they received no further instructions from her within the hour, they were to go about their normal business. A medical shuttle had already been despatched by Vimes to pick up Francis and was guiding it to where he lay.

  Even through Plewa’s armour, his body language told Christine he was unhappy at leaving her alone. Before he could object she tried to reassure him.

  “I appreciate your concern Master Sergeant, but as you can see around you, here in my own quarters I am perfectly safe. There are security measures in place that will ensure my complete safety. If it makes you feel happier feel free to assign several guards to the entrance.”

  They both retracted their helmets so they could look directly at each other. She held Plewa’s gaze for a few seconds until he bowed his head in agreement before nodding and barking instructions to his men, then turned away.

  As two of the Marines took station either side of the entrance, Christine looked at the retreating backs of the other Marines as they ran off to pick up the assassins. She smiled, reassured by their loyalty and the knowledge that today’s incidents were not representative of how the majority of her subjects felt.