The Imperialists: The Complete Trilogy

by H. T. Kofruk

  Seeing Bongani and David had been like a dream and they told her of the months they had spent together on the cold, desolate planet with only small but lethal organisms as company. When she heard of the ‘snowballs’, the curious creature that seemed to hibernate eternally until it sensed food, the biologist in her longed for samples to observe.

  Terry’s drastic transformation from ruthless soldier to political theorist was even more striking to her. Losing her had been his catalyst in renouncing his faith and striving for a better way for humanity and aliens to live peacefully. A breakdown hadn’t occurred within his mind as she had predicted even though the balance between the guilt of genocide and resolute faith had been shattered; religion had been replaced by philosophy and an urge for a better life.

  Positive though the change had been, the more they talked of this new Terry the more she found herself filled with dread. She could not deny that she had wanted to play the role of comforter, counsellor and lover when his inevitable breakdown came about. He had not needed her and this made her anxious, even desperate.

  She hadn’t risked asking whether there was someone else. In fact, she wondered why she had overlooked so thoroughly the possibility during her years of space-travel. Despite having been told by her friends that she had an obsessive streak, she finally realised how much she had obsessed about her reunion with a man she had barely spent a few months with. How had she not even tried to contact her parents on war-torn Earth while a young soldier didn’t fail to leave her mind for years?

  Seeing Bongani and David together made her heart warm; the two had been together for more than fifteen years and their relationship had evolved from comrade to partner to lover. Would she be able to share such a thing with somebody in her lifetime, and would that somebody be Terry? A nagging question mark didn’t neglect to prevent her from sleeping or eating properly.

  A blue holograph appeared to indicate that someone wanted to talk to her. She had been expecting this call for days and its prospect had kept her awake the whole night. Fifteen minutes ago, she had seen the bright green light on a holograph projector which could only mean the arrival of the ship carrying the person she longed to see. Like a daft little girl, she made a small whooping noise of surprise.

  “Heera” she answered the call after calming herself.

  “Doctor Kim, Admiral Bongani requests your presence at the landing dock” said the holograph of a young female crewmember. Could she see a slight shade of pity in her eyes?

  “Thank you. I’ll be right there.”

  “I can send someone over to escort you if you like, ma’am.”

  Heera shook her head, only realising afterwards how hard she had shaken it. “That’s quite alright. I’ll find my way.”

  The woman nodded and the holograph disappeared but not without Heera imagining that she had glimpsed the same pity in her eyes.

  She looked at the mirror once more and realised how she had aged in the past four years. The years of yearning, struggle and frustration showed in the prominent wrinkles near her eyes and mouth. Her previously shiny black hair seemed unkempt and withered. It almost appeared that she had aged ten years instead of four.

  Pushing back these thoughts, she made her way to the landing deck through the vast wormhole station. She hitched a ride on a pulse glider with two burly Polynesian soldiers before taking a lift to the landing floor. With every step she drew closer, her heart beat stronger and faster until she was sure that people around her could hear it or at least feel the tremors it generated.

  She gave her passcode to a guard before entering the deck which housed hundreds of fighters, transport vessels, drones and civilian spacecraft. She felt a wave of relief come over when she saw the familiar face of David waiting for her. He smiled but she sensed a dreaded shade of sadness in his smile. After the usual greetings, the two walked towards a large Orca transporter that had landed some moments ago a few hundred feet away. A small group of military personnel including Bongani stood waiting for the main hatch of the ship to open. On seeing Heera and his lover approach, he merely gave a nod of acknowledgement.

  Butterflies inhabited her stomach and a strange sense of dreaming crept over her. She knew that she should be ready for disappointment but imagining his loving, relief-filled expression was irresistible. Nevertheless, she forced herself to calm down and tried to regard the situation as rationally as possible; Terry had not seen her for years and if his sudden psychological transformation hadn’t changed his view of her, then her long absence would have. He had, moreover, thought her dead until a few days ago. What more certain way was there to blot out a person in the mind of someone else than death?

  She eventually started looking at the other people around her she didn’t know. A young girl with short hair and a bright red piercing on the side of her nose caught her eye. When their eyes met, the girl quickly shifted her vision elsewhere as if embarrassed. Something told Heera that that this girl shared something special with Terry. She looked more carefully at her as the other girl had most definitely done while she had daydreamed; she was at least ten years her junior and had fuller, better formed hips and breasts. The imagined scene of Terry’s hands caressing the girl tenderly suddenly brought murderous thoughts to her mind.

  She shook away the sensation and fretted about how much she had changed. She was no longer the young, idealistic girl she had been before fatefully meeting Terry on the remote planet of Kheut. She had killed, escaped death and travelled far further in space than she ever thought she would. With a sudden strike of emotion, it hit her that she had become the ruthless killer while Terry had become an idealist.

  The hiss of a pressure hatch opening tore her from her troubling thoughts. Her breath quickened and her hands started shaking. Whatever happened, she mustn’t faint, she thought. A big-shouldered man walked out of the ship but the gases from the pressure release hid his face. When the face turned out to be that of an officer with Asian facial features, she didn’t know whether she felt eased or disheartened.

  The next person had the same broad shoulders but was slightly taller and somewhat thickset. Once his face became visible Heera stopped breathing. He had aged during their time apart and a few strands of grey prematurely peppered his dark brown hair. The war, her alleged death, his transformation from soldier to politician, and everything in between was etched in the wrinkles that had formed around his eyes and forehead. His eyes, however, evoked the same glittering sense of naïve energy that had attracted her.

  He had an uncertain, searching look as he scanned the people on the deck. Heera had timidly decided to stand near the back and it took some time for their eyes to lock but when they did, she couldn’t help the tears rushing down her face. She barely muffled a sob at finally seeing the man she loved.

  She could identify the sadness and regret in his eyes even through her tears and she knew that he was no longer hers right away. In a matter of seconds, he conveyed more to her than he ever could with words though the sorrow written on his face. Knowing how ridiculous she must look, she turned and ran, ignoring David’s attempt to comfort her with his hand around her shoulder.

  But after running about a hundred yards, she slowed down and finally stopped. What had she been thinking? More than sad, she started feeling angry with herself. She had expected this for the past few days. In a period of not only war, but the threat of Renden annihilation, she was crying over a long lost love? She had killed for this? Bitterness and resentment, not of Terry or the situation but of her own juvenile selfishness smothered her other emotions. She didn’t even wait to see if Terry had attempted to follow her and ran off with a taste of disgust in her mouth.

  Her clock told her that it was nearly ten o’clock in the evening when the knocking awoke her. She had felt exhausted upon returning to her small room and had quickly undressed and crawled into bed. Six hours had gone by in what seemed like a moment of dreamless, sweet sleep. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept so well and it felt as if t
he fatigue and hopelessness of the past years were finally washing away. When her eyes gained focus, she saw that it was Terry at the door. Breathing deeply, she put on a thick gown and went to open the door well aware that she probably looked terrible.

  The door hissed open and he stood there with a stupid expression on his face. Heera had found his obtuseness charming before but now found it infuriating with him standing speechless with his mouth half open.

  “Come in, Terry” she said not unkindly.

  She sat down casually on her bed and gestured to a low chair near it. In a strange way, she knew that her casualness wasn’t staged; now that she knew the situation and why everyone else hadn’t talked to her about it, she was alleviated and unshackled. Terry sat down stiffly as if he wasn’t accustomed to sitting down.

  “Would you like some tea?” she said after a moment of silence.

  He nodded his head. She got up and went to her small kitchen area and pretended not to hear Terry’s barely muffled sigh of relief. In a few minutes she came back and put a glass of black tea on a low table in front of him. He gratefully took the cup and sipped.

  “Mmm” he said, probably out of politeness.

  Another awkward moment full of eager sipping went by and Heera started to get angry. He had been here for nearly ten minutes without saying a word!

  “Terry, do you have something to say?” she said trying to keep the irritation out of her tone.

  He put down the cup and put on a serious face as if the moment of truth had come. “Heera…” He managed one word before going into a coughing fit. Once he stopped and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, he continued. “Heera, I think you know that I’m with someone else now.”

  Heera struggled to keep her composure. Was he as thick-witted to tell her this after ten bloody minutes of keeping her waiting? “Yes” she said simply.

  “She’s…”

  “The young girl with the nose piercing waiting for you on the deck.”

  He seemed taken aback that she had guessed that. That wily young girl hadn’t told him that the two had basically acknowledged each other on the landing deck. She may as well as come over and told her not to touch her boyfriend.

  “Yes, Fatima. I…I needed closure. You were in my dreams for more than four years, nightmares really. It’s only been a few weeks since I started sleeping properly again.”

  She felt her heart melt at what he just said. She hadn’t been the only one yearning full of pain. “It’s okay” she said with surprising ease.

  “But then four days ago, I got a message that you had suddenly appeared. That’s when the nightmares started again. Every night I see you die in a different way. It’s excruciating.” Heera didn’t know what to say to that but thankfully Terry continued. “You see, accepting your death was the most difficult thing that I ever did and it changed me as a person. I became you in some ways. People give me credit for the political theories I write about but they’re really just elaborated versions of your ideas.”

  Heera could feel tears forming in her eyes. She still loved him even if he couldn’t return it, or at least express the same emotion. “I never stopped thinking about you.”

  “I barely stopped thinking about you. But we both know that it isn’t fair to Fatima and fairness has become a scarce resource during this godforsaken war.”

  She nodded in agreement.

  “Our feelings, whatever they were before, are miniscule things in this age” he continued. “No one knows how many people have died. Earth is beyond our grasp, all because of this stupid war started by rich families with too much time and money on their hands. It has to change.”

  He got up and handed the empty cup to Heera. “I’m so glad to see you alive and well and you’ll always be a part of me” he said with a tone of finality in his voice. With that he shook her hand awkwardly and walked towards the door.

  “What about Bin’ja?” said Heera.

  Terry stopped. She could tell that he had been dreading the question. “The Nikruk are our enemies.”

  “Not him. You know that, Terry.”

  “We need to find out more about them and he’s our only live specimen.”

  “No!” she cried.

  Terry opened the door and shut it behind him before Heera could say anymore.

  Chapter 19: Crippled

  ‘The Patriarch Emperor of the Orthodox Church is the nominal head of the Orthodox Empire. He is the spiritual father of all Orthodox followers and can, in theory, dismiss the president. This is highly unlikely to happen since the president, a leader elected every ten years by the Orthodox Welfare Party, holds the position of Chief-Commander of the Imperial Forces. This was a concession made following the Welfare Party's victory at the end of the Orthodox Civil War, a gruesome nationalistic strife that erupted after the Patriarch Emperor ceded large portions of Siberia to the New Han Empire.’ - Terry Southend, , year 2916.

  Paul awoke with a blinding pain in his head and his left shoulder. The room was only dimly lit with the green light of a dying bioluminescent plant. He couldn’t recall where he was or how he got there. He blinked away his pain and tried to focus. A soft rumbling sound and a light trembling told him that he was in a vehicle, probably a pulse-glider. The lack of light or windows was an indication that the vehicle was armoured.

  He struggled to sit upright but a sharp pain shot up his left shoulder as if a lightning bolt struck it and the electricity was travelling up his nerves to his brain. The world turned white before he regained control of his body and concentrated to block out the pain again. Once the pain subsided he rolled to the right to get out of the bed but found he had been strapped in. He lifted his right hand to unbuckle the strap but found it laborious with just one hand. He was reluctant to use his other hand due to the pain he felt in his left shoulder but tried to raise it, all the while wincing from the expected flood of pain. A panic came over him; he couldn’t feel his left arm.

  Gingerly feeling with his right hand, he found that his other arm finished just below the shoulder. He fought back the tears of self-pity and lay back limp on the bed. The vibrating sound of the Death Beam wriggled its way back into his memory. Thousands of civilians lay dead on the landing platform hundreds of feet underground, each one of them expressing the shock at suddenly being devoid of life through their open eyes. How had he survived? How many others remained?

  A dreaded sense of hopelessness engulfed him like a blanket made of barbed wire. Was humanity destined to be exterminated? He had failed, it was as simple as that. He had been given the responsibility and the capacity to save Earth, to build a new Catholic home, to see a new cohesive Renden world, but he had failed miserably and each and every Renden would be hunted like a rat.

  He remembered his training in Godfist, an ancient fighting method developed by the first Catholics on Constantine. The final stage had consisted in mastering Final Blood, the ultimate representation of a Catholic’s faith. All knights of the Grey Order were masters in Godfist, but only a few could or would perform Final Blood. Its creation had entailed centuries of theological debate; it was the ultimate suicide of a knight.

  Suicide was as a serious sin as it had been since the beginning of Christianity. There was a special place for people committing this final sin in Hell, but the Pope had formally sanctioned its usage almost two hundred years ago but only for special cases; if it furthered the cause of Catholicism or if it prevented another heinous sin: betrayal.

  The Church taught that the justified use of Final Blood would see the user become a martyr who would enter heaven without hindrance. But the Church was gone and the universe had become chaotic. Paul didn’t know whether the assurance of martyrdom was valid. For him, a suicide had been a suicide even if he had never dared voice his opinion to elders of the Church.

  He knew that performing Final Blood would be a cowardly suicide at that moment. Hell would be waiting for him. All he had to do was meditate and imagine his blood boiling. In a matter of minut
es, hot blood would gush from his eyes, nose and ears and he would drown in it. He had tried it once at the final stages of his training and had to lie in a hospital bed for two weeks even though he had stopped before the critical stages.

  What made him feel even worse was the knowledge that his reasons for even considering suicide were much more cowardly than he wanted to admit. It was not the hopeless situation of the war or the threat of total annihilation. He wanted to die because he didn’t want to live as a cripple. If Sir Elena was alive, she would never caress a cripple such as him. Though he had vowed celibacy, just as Sir Elena had, he realized that he loved her. The sheer cowardice that inhabited his mind and heart made him want to vomit. He had fallen for a woman and now, he was worried that his handicap would deter her.

  His train of thought went back to when he suspected he had started to be attracted to the formidable woman. Their two forces had finally met in central France. His troops had managed to evade the Nikruk and make their way from the Arabian Peninsula to Maghreb in North Afrika. From there, they had landed on shores of Italy and then to marched France. Sir Elena had become the highest ranking knight of the remaining First Grey Army after their ambush by Orthodox and Nikruk troops. Only a few thousand had survived and she had barely managed to hide her tears of relief on meeting his much larger, mixed force.

  He had already known her on Constantine but seeing her seem vulnerable had triggered a sense of duty to protect her. He was well aware that she did not need his protection but it was a source of motivation nonetheless. Now he wanted nothing more than to feel her in his arms and squeeze her tight. He wanted to be happy and hopeful with her by his side. He wanted to have a family with her.