Price of Imperium

by Dave Robinson

  The bridge was quiet, the lights on bright settings for once. Tam looked up and surveyed his bridge crew. Normally they'd be smiling more, but this time all their faces looked drawn and tired. Even Fahad Vidall had bags under his eyes, and that wasn't normal. He glanced at the others, and none looked any more rested than Vidall.

  "Anything from the station yet?" he asked. "We should be getting docking instructions soon."

  "No sir," the communicator replied. "All I'm getting is standard message traffic between the station and the surrounding ships. Nothing coming our way at all."

  "Hmmmm," Tam said, "maybe they're short-handed. Better contact control and send in a request for docking. The sooner we get the kendradi off the ship the sooner we can get environmental back to normal."

  "Aye sir."

  He tried to get a better look at the station. It was odd to see nothing larger than a cruiser. Usually there was at least one battle squadron at Rondor. "Mr. Vidall, can you do a quick sweep? I thought there was a superdreadnaught division stationed here, and I can't see them being out on maneuvers."

  "Aye sir," Lieutenant Vidall bent over his console. "Nothing yet. I can't even pick up a battle cruiser locally, let alone a division of superdreadnaughts. Looks like they've stripped the station."

  "That's funny, with the Enemy on the way I'd expect they'd reinforce it."

  "I would too sir," Vidall replied.

  "Captain," the communicator broke in. "We have a problem, they're denying us docking permission."

  "What?" Tam spun in his command chair. "Put me through to control."

  "Aye sir," she tapped her console and Tam saw a young officer with an unfamiliar badge on his uniform, just under his lieutenant's pips.

  "Yes? What do you want now?" The man's voice sounded bored. "I already told your communications officer that you aren't authorized to dock here. So why don't you just go away and leave me alone to do my duty?"

  "Not authorized?" Tam pulled his fingers from the dents he'd made in the soft plastic under the armrests. "This is an Imperial Fleet ship and that's an Imperial Fleet Station. I also don't care what sort of half-assed reserve unit you came from, I am your superior officer and you will call me sir."

  "This is not an Imperial facility and I do not have to call you sir." The lieutenant straightened up. "This facility belongs to the Tavrolan Sector Guard, not your precious Imperium, and you are expressly forbidden to dock here." He reached out slowly and with an exaggerated gesture flipped a switch, killing the transmission.

  "I don't think we're going to find a friendly supply officer on that station, sir." Kharan said.

  "We could declare an emergency," the communicator broke in. "They'd have to let us dock then."

  "I don't think that will work," Fahad Vidall's voice was soft but his tone wasn't. "Take a look at the master plot."

  A pair of heavy cruisers had swung between Talon and the station, the emitters on their upper hammerbeam turrets growing shorter every second. Sensor alarms screamed as the bridge lights dropped to combat levels. Tam grunted as the shock harness extended from his command chair and pulled him into the cushions. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the rest of the bridge crew settling into position as they went to combat stations. As the last chair locked the alarm shut off.

  "Captain, they have a firing lock." Lieutenant Vidall's voice was magnified by the silence. "I could raise shields but I don't think they'd do much good."

  Tam swallowed, his throat dry. "Bring us to a stop relative to the station, and let's see what happens."

  "Aye sir." The helmsman brought Talon to a dead stop relative to the station.

  "Captain?" the communicator swung round. "I'm getting another message from the station."

  "Pipe it to my station ensign."

  "Range warning, Range warning. Attention all ships are ordered to leave the area of Tavrolan Guard Station Rondor within five minutes. I repeat, all ships are ordered to leave the area of Tavrolan Guard Station Rondor immediately. The 93rd Cruiser Squadron will be conducting a live fire exercise in five minutes. All ships are ordered to leave the vicinity." The automated voice filled the bridge.

  "Helm, take us out to the limit then lift to fivespace." The harness retracted and Tam rose from his chair. "Lenys, Fahad, my office in five minutes. Get Lieutenant Deggon too, we have some decisions to make."

  "Aye sir."

  *

  Tam managed to make it back to his cabin without stepping on or tripping over any of the survivors. His desk slid out to make a table and he sat down, hoping to gather his thoughts before the others got there. A quick query brought the enviro system status up on his 'pad. So far everything was holding, but for how long?

  Jeni Deggon was the first to knock on his door; barely recognizable with lank greasy hair and what looked like two black eyes. His first thought was that someone had beaten her, then he realized they were from lack of sleep. She collapsed into a seat and looked at him hollowly. "Shouldn't we be docking sir?"

  "Not soon," he said. "They chased us off with a couple of cruisers, claiming we were in the middle of a live fire exercise."

  She nodded towards the doorway. "It probably would have been kinder if we'd stayed," she said. "We'll die just as surely from suffocation."

  "Your job is to make sure we don't die while we figure a way out of this." He looked across the table. "Is that clear?"

  "Yes sir," she said slowly, looking down at the table.

  The hatch opened, letting Kharan and Vidall into the cabin. Tam heard the air system speed up as they entered, it sounded like the fan was failing before it evened out. The two officers slipped into chairs and put their own 'pads on the table.

  Tam met Kharan's eyes. "We have a problem, and need a solution. We can't put in to Rondor Station, so we need somewhere else to go, and some way to make sure we can last long enough to get there."

  "Aye sir," Vidall nodded. "Have you any idea about the time frame?"

  "Not yet," Tam turned to Deggon, "how long would you say we can last Lieutenant?"

  "Honestly sir, I don't know. We could last another week, or we could lose two ventilators in the next hour." She spread her arms. "There's no way to tell at this point. If we'd spread them more evenly throughout the ship..." her voice trailed off for a moment. "If we'd done that, we might be in a bit better shape now. But we'd still be in rough shape."

  "So what can we do now?" Vidall asked. "Is there anything we can do to stretch things out?"

  Deggon frowned, "the real issue is that our scrubbers just weren't designed to deal with the kendradi, and there's nothing much we can do about that."

  "Can we reroute the ventilators to put more of the load on the other areas? See if that can help?" Kharan asked, her fingers framing her face. "It might extend our support a little longer."

  "I already thought of that Commander," Lieutenant Deggon said. She shrugged her shoulders. "I've got as much going through the other sections as I can without running new vents which would kill our internal integrity; and even if I did that it would only take about five percent of the load."

  "That's out then," Tam said. "Given Rondor I don't want to cripple integrity We may need it."

  "Aye sir." Deggon nodded, "I wasn't planning on doing it anyway. I don't think it would be worth the effort."

  "Good," he thought for a moment. "Are you sure there's nothing else we could do? Is there anything else we could cannibalize for scrubbers?"

  "Scrubbers, no sir I don't know of anything..." Deggon's voice trailed off.

  "This is where we would have been better off on a frigate," Vidall said, filling the gap of Deggon's silence. "We could have thrown them aboard their boarding shuttles or something."

  "Did you say shuttles?" Jeni Deggon's eyes lit up. "It won't help much but we could move the kendradi into the boat bay." Her voice sped up and Commander Holron could see the faraway look that meant she was thinking faster than she could talk. "We put them in the bay then seal the bay but don't eva
cuate the atmosphere. It will be crowded but we should be able to fit them in."

  "So we just let them suffocate?" Lt. Commander Kharan said when the engineer ran out of breath. "That doesn't sound like much of a plan to me."

  "No, no, you don't understand ma'am." Lieutenant Deggon began to smile as she continued, leaving ripples in the grease on her face. "Once we get them in the boat bay we power up the shuttles in emergency shelter mode. The shuttles can draw power from the umbilicals so we don't drain their accumulators."

  "I think I follow," Tam said. "We just treat the bay like an emergency shelter and let the shuttles handle its atmosphere." He narrowed his eyes. "But can they do that? I thought they needed a closed system."

  "I can get around that sir," Deggon was already looking intently at her 'pad. "I can disable some of the interlocks and run the exchange ports directly out to the bay. It will be ugly, but it should work; and it will take the load off our main ventilators so they should last longer."

  "Do it," Tam drummed his fingers on the table. "How long is it going to take to implement it? And how long will it last?"

  "Implementation, maybe half a shift, tops. As for how long it will last? A week, ten days if we're lucky." Deggon looked up from her 'pad. "Destroyers aren't made for this kind of thing." She gathered her 'pad. "I'll be in the bay if anyone needs me."

  Tam nodded. "Now that we have a bit of time to play with, we need somewhere to go. We can't just sit here in fivespace and wait for the time she just bought to run out."

  Vidall slid his 'pad across the table. "That could be difficult.." The screen displayed a map of local space with all the fleet stations highlighted. "From what I can see sir, we could have a big problem. Most of the bases in this sector support the Tavrolan Guard as well as the fleet, and after Rondor Station I don't think we can count on any of them."

  "So what other choices do we have?" Holron asked. "I'd rather not put into a civil station with a flood of alien refugees, but we may have no choice."

  "The Guard." Lenys Kharan spoke flatly laying a finger on a dark point on Vidall's display she continued. "There's a base of the Imperial Guard right there sir."

  "Why isn't it on my plot?" Vidall asked. "It's programmed to display all installations in a week's range."

  "Because this one's not on the regular charts," she said. "It's where they keep the planet-busters."

  "And you know this how?" Vidall said, "ma'am," the last word an obvious afterthought. Everyone knew the Guard had bases scattered throughout the Imperium, but very few knew the locations.

  "I was the navigator on a courier when I was a JG," she said. "We had to take someone there once, and I loaded the coordinates into my implant. I thought it might come in handy. Besides, I was a navigator of the Imperial Fleet and here was a base someone thought I shouldn't know how to get to." She leaned back and folded her arms under her breasts.

  "I'm sure you're technically guilty of breaching security, but it wasn't a Fleet matter so I'm going to overlook it." Tam smiled. "Besides, it would be pretty low of me to gig you for saving our lives."

  She nodded her head. "Thank you sir, I appreciate it."

  "See to it that you do, Number One," he replied with mock-seriousness. "But I can't speak for the Guard. They may not be quite so forgiving of someone bringing a shipload of aliens to one of their hidden bases."

  "Yes sir," she said. "But there's one thing we haven't considered."

  "Go on Number One," Holron said, glancing over at Vidall who was clearly not going to interrupt his superiors at this point.

  "The Enemy." She looked at the two men before continuing. "It looks to me like our drone didn't get through. Unless Tavrolan has somehow figured out how to make a truce with an enemy who doesn't communicate nobody knows they're coming."

  Vidall slapped the table then turned to Tam. "That's the only thing that makes sense. They don't know the Enemy is coming so all they're concerned about was their little power grab at Rondor."

  "Which means that it's our duty to inform the Guard." Tam smiled slowly as he spoke, "even if it does mean a minor security breach."

  "Right then," he continued. "Lay in a course, I want a least-time transit."

  "Aye sir." Kharan rose from the seat at the end of the table. Vidall followed her out and it was all Tam could do to stifle a sigh of relief when the hatch closed and the fans stepped down a notch. This was not the mission he'd signed on for. He remembered what his first exec had told him when he received his fourth ring. The celebration had been at the officer's club just two nights before they'd lifted out on this mission.

  "You're the reason I got this ring so early Commander," the newly minted Captain had said around a celebratory drink. "You're too good a trainer. I got a look at your file, says you're a plodder, with nothing but good habits. Good habits and no fire. Don't be surprised if one of your execs gets a flag before you get your fourth ring."

  He'd almost left the party then and there, but somehow he'd stayed for two more toasts, then made his way out of the officer's club and back to his own ship. Talon was his fourth command, and second destroyer. He'd had her almost four years now, and expected to stay aboard her for another two at least.

  His fingers drummed on the hard smoothness of the tabletop as he thought. This might actually put a fourth ring on his cuff. If the Imperium was still around to hand out promotions. For the moment he had more important things to worry about, like an Enemy planet boring towards the Imperium.

  *

  Tam glanced toward Lenys Kharan as she sat stiffly in her chair. He was following her advice and dropping out of fivespace well clear of the Guard station, but even so he could see the strain on her face when she turned towards the forward viewscreen. He took a short breath of the metallic-tasting air and turned towards the screen.

  There was the familiar twisting feeling, like being folded inside himself, and the screen cleared showing the familiar shape of threespace. Each space looked different, though Tam couldn't have told anyone how. All he knew was that like all spacers he could tell which space he was in by looking at the viewscreen. Now the star-flecked blackness he saw was that of threespace.

  "Wheeep." The alarms shrilled as the bridge went dark and shockframes locked everyone into their seats.

  "Captain, I'm getting targeting locks, multiple sources three and fourspace both." Vidall's voice was calmer than Tam felt. "I read at least three battle cruisers within a lightsecond, and another half-dozen sources between us and the station."

  "All stop," Tam ordered. "Commander Kharan, start broadcasting a distress signal. Let them know we have an environmental emergency aboard."

  "Aye sir,".

  "Mr. Vidall, I need those shields down and all active sensors offline."

  "Aye sir." Vidall nodded.

  "Captain, they're ordering us to jettison all our missiles, power down the drive and shut down the main reactor." Lenys Kharan said. "We have five minutes to comply, and then they will talk about our emergency."

  Vidall looked up from his console. "Captain?"

  "Do as they say." Tam's mouth quirked around the edges. "I don't think our nine missiles are a threat to those battle cruisers. We're here for help so let's jump through their hoops. It's not like we have anywhere else to go."

  "Aye sir," Vidal repeated. "Disarming and jettisoning all missiles and reloads."

  Tam brought up a screen on the arm of his command chair to follow what was going on outside. The number one turret was just visible and he could see the emitters depressed right against the hull. The missile lay in its launch rack, between the dorsal and port ventral turret banks, a featureless gray cylinder. Talon shuddered as the launcher cycled, throwing it clear of the ship where it could bring up its own drive field.

  This missile didn't survive long enough. Point defence hammerbeams lanced out from one of the battle cruisers, turning a half-million stellar missile into so much crumpled foil floating in space. Moments later, another missile chunked into the launch
rack, ready to meet the same fate. Closing the screen he turned away, I hope they'll sign off on those missiles.

  Flipping over to the internal monitors, he saw Lieutenant Deggon and her crew preparing for reactor shutdown. The minutes ticked away as he sat in his command chair, waiting while his crew went through the shutdown procedure. All he had to do was sit there and look like everything was going according to plan.

  Talon shivered when the reactor went down; internal gravity shifted over to backup power. The combat board shone red as system after system went offline, unable to run without the ship's main power. They were now about as combat-effective as one of his niece's toys. Then the main screen came on, showing a full captain of the Imperial Guard.

  "This is Captain Har Ovrilan of the Imperial Guard, what's the nature of the emergency, Commander?" The voice was crisp and formal. "And how did you know there was a base here?"

  "My Exec knew the coordinates," Holron said. "Our life-support's overloaded because we're carrying five hundred survivors and I need somewhere to offload them."

  "Why didn't you take them to Rondor?" Har Ovrilan's face was blank.

  "Because Rondor turned us away, Captain. The Enemy destroyed over half their solar system."

  "Rig for tractor, Commander, we're bringing you in. Har Ovrilan out." The screen flashed dead. Holron felt the ship shudder as half a dozen tractors speared her. An external view showed they were securely in the grip of one of the battle cruisers, probably Har Ovrilan's. The tactical display showed the other two peeling off as Talon was towed towards the base.

  "Put it on the main screen Mr. Vidal," Holron ordered. "We may as well see where they're taking us."

  "Aye sir."

  As they closed the station itself came into view, a huge almost featureless sphere, hanging against the blackness. A closer look showed sensors and point defense emplacements, even capital hammerguns, but they all looked small against the station. A tiny speck of light crossed the surface, coming from an external maintenance craft. Vidal zoomed in on it as it caught a suited worker in its beam.