The Imperialists: The Complete Trilogy

by H. T. Kofruk

  “It’s more for his protection than ours” said Geraldine, seeming to sense Heera’s fury. “There are already many voices calling for his immediate extermination.”

  Heera forced herself to cool her head. She had seen what Bin’ja could do, how he could kill a dozen well-armed people without so much as a scratch. His kind had already killed millions on Earth. How else would he be treated? She shook off a tear that was threatening to roll down her cheek. Bin’ja looked at her with deep, sad eyes and made a rumbling sound as if to console her. The effect was contrary to his intent, however, and she barely managed to muffle a sob as tears started to flow profusely.

  “We need to go” said Geraldine in a professional tone that nonetheless gave away a measure of concealed sympathy.

  Geraldine led the way with Heera and Bin’ja following flanked by soldiers on either side. The group arrived at an Orca transport vessel, the original dark blue of the Atlantic Alliance painted over with the dark green of United Terra. The Jirabu system had no inhabited planets and the main wormhole station was located on a planetoid that was part of an enormous asteroid belt the same diameter as the entire solar system. Heera could see through a small porthole the system’s sun as a distant but bright dot.

  The wormhole station itself was of a classic Atlantic Alliance design from an earlier era. Shaped like a giant cross with two shorter bars perpendicular to each other so as to resemble a crucifix from multiple viewpoints, the station was much larger than the modern ones and had only one wormhole manipulator. Despite the size all the docking areas were occupied, forcing the later arrivals to go back and fro from the station on transport vessels.

  Two fighters, one a Tiger Shark, the other a Phoenix, escorted them the two miles to the station, an unnecessary precaution in friendly space in Heera’s opinion. She sat next to Bin’ja and soldiers with drawn weapons sat to either side and opposite them. Geraldine, who sat facing Heera, had put on her helmet but kept her visor up.

  “As I said, there are certain elements demanding retribution. Hopefully, the two fighters will deter anyone from doing anything stupid.”

  Bin’ja’s sudden high-pitched rumbling made everybody jump. “We are in danger” he simply said, oblivious to the barrels all pointed at him.

  The vacuum of space cancelled any sounds of pulse cannon fire. The deafening screech of tearing metal filled the cabin and the vessel started spinning uncontrollably, its gravity shield generator unable to keep up with the movement. Heera found herself stuck to the porthole from the centrifugal energy of the spinning ship. From there, she was able to get nauseating glimpses of what was going on outside; the two escort fighters were engaging a third which was attempting to flee.

  “Get this ship under control!” shouted Major Schmitt.

  “I’m doing everything I can” shouted back the pilot.

  Heera looked down through the open cockpit door. The pilot had put on his nerve-sensory device that allowed him to control the ship with thought alone. Heera knew that this was usually reserved for combat use since the Orca, though less manoeuvrable than a fighter, still had considerable fighting capabilities.

  The spinning started to slow and Heera felt herself gradually getting lighter. When at last the ship stabilised, the pilot slipped off the nerve-sensory device that had covered his head and eyes and turned back to check whether everyone was alright. Heera sat back down on the bank and saw the soldiers also getting back up. The last one to get back on his feet absent-mindedly accepted the hand of someone but then gasped when he realized that it was Bin’ja’s.

  Everyone stared at the large alien who was still grasping the soldier’s comparatively puny-looking gauntleted hand. Heera saw that the coils had either come loose during the spinning or Bin’ja had simply broken free to prevent himself from getting hurt. None of the soldiers, not even Major Schmitt, dared point their guns and order him to release the soldier. In spite of the silence, Heera felt a collective sigh of relief when Bin’ja finally helped the soldier to his seat and put his clawed hands back on his knees. No more barrels were pointed at him during the remainder of the trip to the wormhole station.

  A distant flash of light made everyone look out of the portholes. One of the fighters, nobody could really make out which one at this distance, exploded in a light blue flare characteristic of pulse cannon attacks. When the two escort fighters returned to their original positions on either side of the transport vessel, Heera knew that it was the assailant fighter that had been destroyed.

  “Is everyone alright?” said Geraldine in belated verification. The other soldiers grunted their answers while Heera just nodded to her. “It was one of our own that tried to take down the shuttle” she said, evidently having received a Web-Com message. “A novice pilot who just got his wings. He was a Pacific Federation colonist who lost his parents back on Earth to the alien invaders.”

  Heera nodded again. She shuddered to think of the strangling urge for vengeance that flowed through the young pilot’s veins. The urge had blocked out all reason, all will for self-preservation. Was misguided thirst for justice such a strong force in human nature? What went through the mind of the boy when he decided to embark on the quest to avenge his parents?

  She reflected on her visit to Teheran when she was fourteen years old. She had visited a monumental museum full of works thousands of years old. What had struck her the most was the Hammurabi stele, a giant slab of shiny black rock inscribed with the world’s oldest code of law. She had read about the stele in textbooks and had even met a simulated version of Hammurabi who described his intentions on creating it. She had been fascinated by the complexity of ancient Babylonian society but, at the same time, cringed at the crudity of the punishments. If all codes of law were descended from the Hammurabi Code, whether the Napoleonic Code, the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch or the Law of Han Shi-Zu, wasn’t Law in its essence a systematic approach of Vengeance? Wasn’t Justice a way for a society to take revenge in the place of the victim? Was the young pilot looking for revenge or justice or both?

  The arrival on to the wormhole station was a discreet happening with the soldiers and the two ‘captives’ herded into an armoured pulse glider. Heera got the feeling that everything was being done to hide their presence on the station.

  “Is Terry Southend on this station?” she asked.

  Geraldine remained silent.

  “Does the United Terra leadership know of my presence?”

  Geraldine shook her head. “Only a handful, for security reasons.”

  “Is that why someone tried to kill us in the shuttle?”

  “There may have been…inadequate operational security.”

  “Will we stay here or will we be transferred to your headquarters in the Carulio System?”

  Heera sensed more hesitation. “This is our headquarters.”

  The remainder of the short journey was spent in silence. When the glider door opened, she saw that they were in a complex with sombre-looking tunnels.

  “Please descend, both of you” said Geraldine with ice back in her voice.

  The pair was led to a large, ill-lit room with only a few chairs and a metal table. The sound of another pulse glider was soon audible followed by a pair of footsteps. A dark, towering figure entered the room.

  “Attention!” shouted Geraldine in the classical, snappy military way.

  “At ease” said a booming, familiar voice.

  “Sir, this is Doctor Heera Kim and her Nikruk friend.”

  “Yes, Bin’ja, if I’m not mistaken. And a ghost risen from the dead.”

  Heera fought to keep back tears of hope. “Hi, Bongani.”

  She didn’t even see the look of surprise on Geraldine’s face that she was on first-name terms with the highest ranking officer in the United Terra navy.

  “I know someone else who will be surprised to know you’re alive” said the former smuggler.

  Chapter 15: Rage

  ‘How long will Rendens remain the dominant race in the Yinhex
i? The prime factor of our dominant position is technological; we are at least fifty years beyond our nearest rival in that realm. For space-faring technology, that gap is even larger as we have cut any development efforts by non-Rendens at the roots. Some races will catch up with our overall technological levels within a matter of decades; for others it may take centuries. What is sure is that we will not have such an advantage for long. How we deal with the shift in this role will define us for the coming generations’. - Terry Southend, , year 2917

  Guilt had been a dutiful friend for the last few years but now it had become an unrelenting bedfellow. Fann, for some inexplicable reason, had felt responsible in some way or another for the death of his father and that of his murderer, the Crown Prince Han Xiao, Fann’s own half-brother. Xiao had been a jealous, deceitful individual but he was Fann’s brother all the same. If the dead Crown Prince had been truly the residual result of centuries of human meddling in the genes of the Imperial Family, Fann was more than susceptible to the same degenerative qualities, especially since he had witnessed physical and mental weakness, albeit of a different kind, in his father.

  The news from a couple days ago confirmed his self-diagnosis; he couldn’t stop the rage and guilt from eating into his mind. It was as if thousands of red-hot worms were digging into his brain and into his ribcage. He felt if he didn’t do something violent soon, he would explode like an overcharged laser cannon. Something in the rapidly diminishing rational part of his brain told him that whatever he was doing was imprudent, rash and stupid. It told him that he was about to lose a lot of friends and probably get himself killed in the process.

  But that part was already overwhelmed by the raging fire. He wanted death for his mother, death for his father, and death even for his brother. He especially wanted death for Tuul, his most loyal friend, comrade and mentor.

  Tuul had risked and sacrificed everything for Fann. When the renegade prince had sought out his old friend in Dongjing years ago, he had thought that Tuul was going to imprison him. The former Imperial Army officer had become the head of a vast network of underground operatives planning to bring down the Han Imperial Family. Fann had been shocked at the literal ‘underground’ nature of the organization on witnessing the enormous man-made cavern.

  The two had been virtually inseparable for the following months during which they had contacted the rebellious elements within the army and navy, used the network to funnel supplies and information to the rebels and finally, rendezvoused with a covert team under Admiral Liu, a childhood friend of Fann’s father and loathed rival of Xiao. Liu had known his days were numbered with Xiao on the Dragon Throne and was also critical of the unnecessary war provoked by the late Emperor. With two dozen ships, fifty thousand crewmembers and almost two hundred thousand soldiers and marines, the Chinese rebel movement had become the biggest firepower contributor to United Terra.

  Both General Tuul, who had become the second highest ranking officer in the United Terra Army, and Admiral Liu had died in the Carulio System. Tuul had taken a much more operational role in the Jibaru System but had only come to see Fann, who had become head of the Marine Corps training program after renouncing his crown and any combat role. If he had been in command of a ship at the moment when all signs of life suddenly vanished on the main United Terra Interim Government vessel, when he felt the faint vibrations of the dreaded Death Beam, he would have launched everything at the Carulio-Tzak home worlds.

  Of course anything he tried would have been in vain, a precursor to a silent, meaningless death. The Marine Corps and army training facility had been on the far edge of the cluster of ships that constituted the United Terra government. That had spared Fann and the two thousand trainees on the retrofitted merchant factory vessel, the UTR Tranquility.

  “This is not wise” said Kinsai, the lanky Shinjakren alien.

  For a moment the rational part of his brain seemed to pulse to life ever so slightly before being re-engulfed in flames.

  “You know Tuul wouldn’t want this” she said again.

  Fann wanted nothing more than to strangle the life out of Tuul’s former-lieutenant. Ever since he met her in Dongjing and she had led him to see Tuul, he maintained a certain respect for her clear judgement and concise manner of talking. After all, being cold and reasonable weren’t the strong points of either Tuul or Fann though the older Mongolian had acquired a cooler temperament with age.

  “They killed him, Kinsai” he replied curtly.

  Kinsai remained annoyingly silent. Didn’t her kind feel loss and hopelessness? Was she really so alien that she couldn’t sympathize with his grief? He desired more than ever someone who would rage with him, struggle for vengeance with him and weep with him. At the young age of thirty, he had already lost all his family, and now his most trustworthy friend.

  “Are you with me?” Say yes dammit, or I’ll kill you…

  Kinsai looked at him with her single large blue eye that looked like a piece of solid glass. He could see his own gaunt face in the unblinking reflection; his cheeks had hollowed out and darkness inhabited the regions beneath his eyes. In the split second that he stared back at himself before tearing away, he noticed madness in his eyes. It was as if death itself occupied the mind and peered out at the world through them.

  “You know I am” said Kinsai in her deep monotone.

  “Then you know what to do” he replied before seeing the judgement in her eye.

  The UTR Novelty had previously been the CIN Yuan Chonghuann, one of the most advanced dragonships in the Chinese Imperial Navy. Technically, Fann had never had proper navy training. His only experience of commanding a warship had been through watching other captains and Tuul. But he knew that the halo of having been a member of the Imperial Family would mean that the mainly Chinese crewmembers would obey his orders without question.

  Kinsai trailed him as he made his way purposefully to the bridge where thirty crewmembers greeted him with tense expressions. He silently made his way to the command chair and sat heavily, a sign to the crewmembers that they could go about their business.

  “Patch through to the station” he ordered.

  A holograph of a young woman promptly appeared. “Captain Shae Zia, United Terra Station 6, Jibaru System” she said in a crisp, officious manner.

  “This is Captain Han Fann of UTS Novelty. I need a wormhole open in two minutes to the coordinates that my communications officer is sending as we speak.”

  The officer wrinkled her brow line. “Sir, this is to the Carulio System.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I can’t authorize that. All contact with the Carulions and Tzak is strictly forbidden by order of…”

  “I know who ordered it!” roared Fann. The poor officer almost physically jumped and looked as if she was going to faint. “Just open it now, Captain Zia” he said in a gentler but no less dangerous tone.

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Enough apologizing” he said, obviously trying to suppress his rage. “Just open.”

  The holograph disappeared and Fann shouted profanity at the empty air before it reappeared a few moments later. This time, it was a small, middle-aged woman with whom Fann was familiar enough.

  “Captain Han. May I ask what this is about?” said General Jia Yin, the most senior surviving officer of the United Terra Army and the current station director.

  “You know what this is about, General Yin.”

  “I do, but I don’t understand. What are you thinking of achieving by going to the Carulio System?”

  “I am going to kill every Carulion and Tzak scum that I can.”

  “And thereby lose one of the most advanced ships in our navy along with two thousand crewmembers? How many enemy vessels do you think you will be able to destroy?”

  “As many as I can, as I said.”

  General Yin stared at him for a few seconds. “And I thought the madness had ended with Xiao.”

  Fann
felt a vein threatening to burst open on his forehead on hearing himself being compared with his bastard brother. “You mind your words.”

  The wily old general looked at him with a bemused expression. “Why should I? You are no longer royalty and I outrank you by several grades. I order you to stand down and wait until further orders.”

  “Orders for what? To sit on my royal arse and wait until every last one of my people is dead? I’ve sat around for the last four years, believing that this United Terra thing would bring justice and peace. Yes, you outrank me, but I have forty fission missiles as well as two planet killers in my arms deck. If I don’t have my wormhole in two minutes, I will assume you are an enemy and attack the station. Two minutes!”

  Communication was cut and the bridge was engulfed by a deafening silence. “Start timing” ordered Fann. “And get ready to ignite two missiles, one pulse and one nuclear.”

  The two minutes were the longest of his life and he was sure that it was the same for everybody in the bridge. Several hails were received from the station but he ordered them to all be ignored as he waited anxiously for the brilliant green light to appear. The timer holograph read 1:57 when a bright flash emanated from the double keumigen lenses of the Jibaru wormhole station.

  “Light speed!” cried Fann as soon as the wormhole had expanded enough to enter safely.

  Nobody had expected to see enough Renden ships to make three fleets in the vicinity of the three-planet system of Carulio, Tzakbhat and their common moon. Most of the ships were of Chinese design but a few were also of the typical log-shape of the Orthodox Empire. A few were of a strange new design that looked almost like semi-organic, moss-covered asteroids. Fann was confused as to whether he should be happy or fearful of the sight. What were they doing in the Carulio System? Had remnants of the Chinese Empire colluded with the powerful Carulio-Tzak alliance? He decided to think later when enemy missile locks were alerted.