The Imperialists: The Complete Trilogy

by H. T. Kofruk

  “We’ve got a Chinese destroyer tailing us” shouted David.

  “How long can this ship take light speed?” asked Terry.

  “At current power levels, about five days”

  Terry knew that a destroyer-size ship could easily top that. That meant in five days, once the ship’s light-speed drive and gravity shields would deplete the power source, the Chinese destroyer would be on them. On the other hand, they had five days to find a way to outsmart the Chinese vessel. Glad to at least get out of the situation, Terry sighed heavily as if he had held his breath.

  Terry and Heera went back to the cargo area where the aliens and some Atlantic soldiers were crouching. He ignored the soldiers who stared at him as he passed them by when one of them suddenly stood up and cried out “Hey! You’re Terry Southend!”

  Guilty of this accusation, Terry saw the rank on the soldier’s uniform indicating that he was a second lieutenant. He approached him and said “That’s Lieutenant Southend. And you finish your sentences with ‘sir’ when you address me.”

  The soldier looked abashed and managed to mutter “Yes, sir.”

  Three years ago, when he was himself a second lieutenant, Terry had starred in a propaganda projection after he won a medal of valour for playing an important role in rescuing an Atlantic terraforming ship from alien pirates. The pirate crew had hijacked an Afrikan trading ship a few years earlier, itself a crime worthy of capital punishment, but then went further and attacked an Atlantic ship! Terry had famously executed one of the audacious aliens on the holograph that went viral on the Web-Com.

  What Terry had learned later was shocking, however. The pirates had been, in fact, the final few hundred of a now-extinct race that were put to the sword due to their stubborn refusal of the Pure Bible. They had no home planet since it had been taken over by Atlantic Alliance forces who were extracting many valuable minerals. They were attempting to hijack the terraforming ship and use it to create a new home. They were the legacy of Atlantic extermination and Terry had a large hand in ensuring that they became extinct. He was, anyhow, a hero to many in the Atlantic Alliance. Weeks of guilt-sodden nights robbed him of sleep and only intervention from the clergy brought peace to his mind.

  Heera had ignored the soldier and walked directly to the Nikruk leader. She was somehow sympathetic to their cause; they simply wanted to go back home. And despite seeing the destruction the aliens could cause, she wasn’t afraid of them. Indeed, the leader seemed like a peaceful, almost father-like being. She was more wary of the thin one who always stood to one side of the leader; he had a violent, streak about him that was only put in check by the leader. The way he spoke and hand gestures were almost frighteningly and threateningly human.

  The leader was in an argument with two of his lieutenants, the skinny one being one of them. Rather, the two lieutenants were arguing and the leader was just listening. They all had deep voices that made their language sound like rumbling. At her approach, the other lieutenant put himself between her and their leader as if she could harm him.

  “I just want to talk” she said.

  The leader beckoned her forward. Terry had arrived beside her as well. The alien squatted on the floor, and the two humans did the same.

  “What did the Rendens do to your home?” asked Heera, to which the skinny alien looked as if he was about to spout profanity in bucket-loads. Again, the leader waved his hand for silence.

  “First, it is polite to tell you my name. I am Bin’ja”

  “Heera. And this is Terry”

  “I first met your kind when I was just a youngling. He came down to the ground from the clouds in a black and yellow ship. Our people were first afraid of him and younglings like me were not allowed nearby. But sometimes he would give us things to eat from his ship. Most of the time, I saw him observing, measuring, listening. At first he couldn’t speak our language but he learned little by little. His accent was frightful though.

  He spent a year on our home, next to one of the Great Trees. It was funny because he didn’t seem to be at all connected to Mother. He didn’t feel anything even while he slept beneath the great canopy. Sometimes he would get sick and then he would go back into his ship where he stayed for a few days. He always managed to get better though.

  But one day, he just left, without saying anything. Sometime later, many more of the same black and yellow ships landed.” Bin’ja suddenly stopped.

  Terry was well aware of what had happened. The first arrival was sent to find weaknesses, learn the language and develop vaccines against local diseases. Certain items like food or tools would be given to gain trust. And when enough information was accumulated, the explorer would abruptly leave and an invasion force would arrive.

  Bin’ja paused for a few seconds, as if trying to remember something that he had purposefully blocked out. His non-skinny lieutenant who introduced himself as Bin’ruk continued for him.

  “Destruction and death, that is what followed. We fought hard against them but they could fly and we couldn’t. And they even tried to destroy Mother.”

  “Mother?” said Terry.

  “Mother lives in the trees. She lives in us” said Bin’ja.

  “Tree-hugging, idol worshipping crap” said Terry in the One Tongue so the aliens wouldn’t understand. But the skinny one seemed to at least grasp his nuance and glared at him.

  Ignoring Terry, Heera asked “Is she your god?” a remark that led to a cynical laugh from the skinny alien.

  “She is our mother, our god, our everything” seethed Skinny.

  “There is only one god and his name is Jehovah” muttered Terry, this time in broken Chinese.

  “Ah, we heard that the only god in universe is an emperor called Han” was the reply from Bin’ja.

  “Well, their god is false. And they will all go to hell for idolizing a mortal man” retorted Terry.

  “How do you know your god is not false?” was the question from Bin’ja that made Terry pause. It also interested Heera. The indoctrinating belief of One God followers was often a mystery to her and she had been tempted to read some anthropology or theology books on the matter.

  “Because we have faith” answered Terry after a couple seconds of thought with a resolute expression and a fist over his heart.

  This response puzzled the aliens. The three of them exchanged looks before looking back at the two humans.

  “What god is so irresponsible that he leaves evidence of his existence in mere faith?” queried Bin’ja.

  “Nothing else is needed. Faith is a test that we must pass to go to Heaven to God’s side.” The sudden change of subject to his faith irritated Terry.

  This time the question came from the skinny alien whose eyes showed not anger but curiosity. “But belief necessitates evidence. That is what we were taught by you Rendens. How can you believe when you have no proof?”

  “Oh yeah? What proof do you have of your tree god?”

  “We feel her every day. She sends her thoughts and visions to us. If she were to die, we would lose our souls.”

  “Of course she does. That’s just another way of saying you only have belief as well. Nothing is tangible. We have a book written with God’s guidance, the Pure Bible.”

  After another awkward pause, Bin’ja put a hand to his chest. With his tough metallic nails, he started to dig into the edge of an armoured plate on his chest. Soon the tips of his fingers were underneath the tough brown plate and he started to lift it. Drops of brown liquid began to run as he dug his nails ever deeper into his flesh. The scraping sound of his actions coupled with the running brown blood made Heera cringe. Just when she was about to yell at him to stop, he opened his chest, revealing his inside.

  A faint pink light emanated from a large heart that occupied the chest. The beating sound of the heart was soothing and the pink light seemed to warm the interior of the cargo cabin. Wisps of smoky white light danced around the room. The soldiers and Kh’at aliens in their cages all fell silent and stare
d at the spot from which the light and sound emanated. Heera felt as if a soft hand were caressing her face and ears. Time slowed down, making seconds feel like minutes.

  “This is Mother. She is in our very fabric” said Bin’ja. His voice was loud but gentle and seemed to come from a long distance. It echoed in the ears and hearts of everyone who was listening. Terry could swear the sound came from inside his head.

  The moment stopped when Bin’ja replaced the armoured plate. When the pink light and beating sound ceased, however, it was replaced by a red light and a siren. Everyone was still and silent as if recovering from a trance and it took a few seconds for the abrasive sound to register.

  Bongani ran into the cargo area from the control deck, pushing an Atlantic soldier out of the way. The ship violently shook, almost making him lose his balance.

  “Have you all been taking stupefying drugs? We’re losing speed!” he cried, his shiny black head dripping with sweat.

  No one had noticed but McKay was behind him. “We entered a dust nebula and some of gases are screwing with the light-speed drive” he explained.

  The ship shook violently as it was virulently pulled out of light speed. The gravity shields were having difficulty blocking the effects of an unpremeditated cessation of light speed travel. Both Terry and Bongani knew that if it didn’t hold, the whole ship and everything in it could be pulled apart into atoms, nuclei and electrons in a nanosecond. But stopping light speed also meant they would be sitting ducks for the Chinese destroyer that was following them.

  “Jesus Christ” swore Terry. “We had to escape in the oldest, crappest heap of rubbish in the galaxy.”

  Terry and Bongani, trailed by McKay, marched to the cockpit where David was both guiding the ship and looking closely at a holograph that showed the state of the light-speed drive, which was basically red everywhere, indicating it was in dire need of repair. “We can’t fix it while it’s in use” he said without turning his head.

  “What about the destroyer? Has its drive been damaged too?” asked Terry.

  “Don’t think so. It isn’t slowing down like we are”

  After a few seconds of thinking, Terry put his hand on Bongani’s shoulder. “I think we need to abandon ship. Our survival rate would increase if we took to the escape pods. How many do you have?”

  Bongani seemed to have difficulty accepting this and gulped down saliva. But as Terry expected, he made a resolute decision after some rational calculations. “We have five escape pods, good for five people each. That means we have only room for half of all the Rendens on board, let alone the aliens.”

  “Fuck the aliens!” yelled McKay.

  Terry didn’t like the idea of leaving Bin’ja. He wanted to find out more about this thing that the alien housed in his chest. In truth, though he would never admit it, the few seconds he spent basking in the pink light were the most divine in his life. He knew chasing after knowledge of this ‘Mother’ would be a slippery slope but perhaps Heera could help him make sense of any findings.

  “The command module also has a small nuclear engine and can detach itself from the cargo area. We can perhaps fit another ten here” continued Bongani.

  “Are the pods guided or pilotable?” inquired McKay.

  “No, but they’re programmed to land on the closest planet with water and oxygen. They each have about a couple months’ supply of oxygen, food and water. They’ll also send unencrypted electronic distress signals if the passengers think it safe. Depending on where they’re deployed, the passenger survival rate varies from abysmal to hopeless” replied David.

  “But still better than going up against that destroyer” pointed out Terry.

  “We need to go and tell the soldiers quietly. Hope those alien freaks don’t have super-sensitive hearing” remarked McKay.

  “They don’t speak our language. Try not to be so obvious when you tell your men though” said Bongani.

  The general nodded and walked off. Terry told the two pilots he was going to call Heera to the control module and walked towards the exit. Nobody on the ship noticed that as they slipped out of light-speed, they became suspended animation again for two and a half seconds just after they heard a deafening bang. For an outside observer, the ship seemed stretch to many times its original length before the trillions of atoms clustered back together to take the form of a ship once again. In five seconds a black destroyer shaped like a giant turtle with yellow eyes appeared.

  A bolt of laser landed on the engine sector, effectively disabling the smuggling ship. The missile shaft of the Chinese destroyer opened to allow one missile to leave, leaving a beautiful blue streak as it headed towards the smaller vessel. Inside the control deck, the woman’s voice of the ship computer counted down the seconds before the nuclear missile blew it smithereens.

  “Ten seconds before impact. Nine, eight, seven…”

  David hit a red switch on the control panel which interrupted the countdown.

  “Command module detaching” announced the computer.

  Horrified, Terry ran to David. “I have to get Heera!”

  “There’s no time. We have to get out of the blast radius” said Bongani.

  Terry made a jump at David screaming again “I have to get Heera!”

  Bongani got in his way. Terry punched him in the face. Bongani replied with his own punch to Terry’s temple that sent him staggering back.

  Suddenly, the control module unlocked itself from the cargo area and using its own thrusters, started to separate. Terry ran to the door that had previously led to the cargo area and banged on it with his fists. Although the door was reinforced, it almost seemed Terry’s blows would break it in. Bongani rushed to grab Terry and tried to immobilize him by grabbing his shoulders from beneath his armpits. That only infuriated Terry more as he threw off the big man with startling strength. All this he did while shouting Heera’s name.

  Just then, the missile struck the cargo area. Terry looked incredulously at the ball of blue flame that was incinerating everyone on the ship.

  “Heera! HEERA!” he screamed before the shock of the explosion sent the newly diminutive ship tumbling in the blackness.

  Chapter 35: The Hall of Peace

  ‘As the glint of light left the world, never did we think that it was for the last time.

  Creatures of darkness from spilled from the sky and the ground was soaked with the green blood of our children.

  We must not go into darkness! The light of our race must be rekindled!

  The drums of warning sang in the green-soaked darkness that our children will remember as the Last Night’

  - Author Unknown, , year unknown

  The huge transparent dome of the Hall of Peace was cracked and broken in several places. In the cloudy sky, the outline of a dark dragon-shaped ship was visible. The fighting had started four days ago when two Orthodox fleets had arrived near the orbit of Saan, taking the Pacific fleet by surprise. After a furious battle in space that lasted a whole day, the Pacific mothership crashed two thousand miles from the Hall of Peace.

  Dirk Jones, the late president’s chief bodyguard, had been in the communications room and saw how the operators were frantically trying to get reinforcements to Saan. Only one cruiser and two destroyers came and the reports suggested that a dozen other planets in Pacific domain were also under attack or had been overrun.

  The Russian Storm fighters, generally accepted to be the most advanced of the current fighter generation, came swarming down in their thousands. Cobra II fighters and ground-based defence systems were inadequate; the sheer number of Storm fighters meant the Cobras were outnumbered and out-manoeuvred. With no orbital support, Saan’s surface defences couldn’t withstand the continuous attack.

  On the fourth day, ground troops finally arrived. The mixed Orthodox-Chinese troops met little resistance from the few Pacific forces stationed on Saan and within hours were on the brink of entering the Hall of Peace. The enemy troops were advancing in the bleak c
limate of Saan wearing environment-detecting camouflage suits that made them very difficult to distinguish with the naked eye. Pacific forces, who had now retreated into the dome, only measured in the high hundreds while the enemy boasted an estimated forty thousand.

  Dirk Jones was commanding a company of marines since he officially held the rank of major, though he was for the most part a civilian member of the Armed Forces. The glass dome was, to the enemy’s disappointment, heavily fortified and it took a lot of artillery pounding to make it crack. Dirk was guarding one of the holes in the dome behind a hastily prepared low wall made of bricks of bisimigen, a biological solution invented in the Pacific that could increase its mass by up to three hundred per cent. If touched softly, it could easily be moulded while sudden shocks were absorbed, making it a perfect material for defence perimeters.

  The enemy was wary of either over-bombarding the Hall of Peace, since they were apparently hoping to get their hands on a lot of military intelligence, or storming it through the two holes in the dome. In the end, they chose to storm it and heavy fighting broke out. Dirk’s company was reinforced by a few marine platoons but the enemy came incessantly. After a few hours of fighting, the enemy disappeared, only to surprise the eastern flank where a smaller hole had been punctured. That was when he saw Gloria running east from something. He knew if she continued that way, she would be killed without a doubt.

  He hadn’t worn an amplifier suit in years and the one he had on fitted him badly. But it allowed him to catch up with Gloria in a few seconds, scooping her up in his arms. Gloria was almost delirious with fear when he got her and covered her eyes with her hands and constantly repeated “Don’t kill me.”