by Dietmar Wehr
There was something about the Emperor’s voice that made Nagumo sit up and take notice. If he didn’t know better, he’d have said that the Emperor was under a lot of stress.
“The COs and I can be at the MC in 45 minutes, Emperor Jonn.”
“Make it 35, Admiral.” There was an undercurrent of menace in that voice, and Nagumo felt an involuntary shiver.
“We’ll be there within 35 minutes, my Emperor.” As Nagumo rushed to obey, he couldn’t help wondering what was so urgent that it couldn’t be handled at the Palace in daytime.
Chapter Five
Day 080/2553
Senior Lieutenant Rolf Schimdt watched the shuttle taxi into the Hangar Bay and come to a stop. By the time he reached it, the CO had already exited, and Schmidt only caught a brief glimpse of the man as he rushed for the hatch leading to the elevators and presumably the Bridge. Lieutenant Abernathy, the shuttle’s Pilot, stepped down onto the deck just as Schmidt came up.
“What’s with the Old Man, Mandy? I’ve never seen him move so fast,” said Schmidt.
Abernathy took her time answering. Schmidt noticed that she had a puzzled look on her face.
“Something weird is going on, Lieutenant,” she said in a slow voice. “The Old Man wasn’t the only commander ordered down to the Majestic Complex on short notice. They were all there, all the commanders of warships, plus Nagumo. They went inside and didn’t come out for almost four hours. Then they came out as a group, and they all had this pained expression on their faces.”
“Aw come on, you must be exaggerating.”
Abernathy shook her head. “Hell no, I’m not exaggerating. It was a damn strange sight, but that’s not the worst of it. On the way back up here, I switched on the video camera in the passenger section to check to see if the Old Man was okay, and I saw him writhing in pain and holding the back of his neck with both hands. I asked him if he needed assistance, and after a few seconds he said no and ordered me to turn the camera off.”
Schmidt shrugged. “So the Old Man had a headache. I would too if I’d been ordered out of bed in the middle of the night for a four hour powwow with the Emperor.” He was about to say more when he saw Abernathy shake her head again, this time more emphatically.
“That was no headache. Headaches don’t make you writhe in pain like that. The expression he had when he came out of the Complex jives with what Lieutenant Tulo told me about Conqueror’s Weapons Officer, Evanka Nolan. He told me that she had a pained expression, that’s the phrase he used, when she came back to the ship from a trip to the Complex to visit her brother. I’m telling ya, Lieutenant, there’s something about this that’s setting off alarm bells in my head.”
“Okay. I agree with you, that does sound strange, but I don’t see what I can do about it.” Before Abernathy could respond, they both heard the two-tone signal for a ship-wide announcement.
“Attention all hands. This ship will leave orbit in two minutes. Astrogator and Helm Officers to the Bridge. That is all.”
Schmidt looked at Abernathy with a frown on his face. “We’ve still got some crew on shore leave on the planet. What’s the Old Man doing leaving them behind?” Abernathy shrugged but said nothing.
When Schmidt was on his way to his duty station in Damage Control, he came across Molitor, the Executive Officer, in the corridor. Schmidt stopped her and told her what Abernathy had told him. He expected her to be skeptical and was surprised when she didn’t try to come up with a more prosaic explanation. When they parted company, she had a thoughtful expression on her face.
When the ship was safely in hyper-space and the Bridge Watch was set, Molitor went down to the CO’s cabin and rang the buzzer. She heard the CO’s voice telling her to enter. She entered and heard the sound of water running in the washroom.
“What is it, XO?” The CO’s voice came from the washroom and sounded tired.
“I just wanted to inform you that I checked our store of consumables. We won’t have enough to last us past Hiesenburg, Skipper. I thought you should know.” As she talked, she walked up to an upholstered chair where the CO’s shirt was laying. The inside of the light blue collar had a red spot that looked to her like blood, and fresh blood at that.
“Not a problem, XO. We’ll requisition what we need when we get to Midgard. Anything else on your mind?”
Molitor was now looking through the open washroom door. She couldn’t see the CO directly, but she could see his left shoulder in the mirror on the far wall. She moved over just in time to get a good look at the reflected image of the CO’s naked back and neck. There was a metal something visible just below the hairline, and a trickle of blood was slowly making its way down his back.
“Ah…no, Skipper, nothing else. Are you feeling okay? Lieutenant Abernathy thought you might be having a bad headache.”
After a slight pause, she heard what sounded like a whimper, but she decided it was likely her imagination as he said, “Just tired, XO. I intend to catch up on my lost sleep. Thanks for your concern. If there’s nothing else, then I’ll let you get back to your duties.”
As she left the CO’s cabin, she realized that her hands were trembling slightly. She’d heard rumors about some kind of communication device implanted in the necks of the support staff at the Majestic Complex. Why the hell did a ship commander need a communication device implanted when it couldn’t possibly work over interstellar distances or even if the ship was still in orbit over Hadley? If Conqueror’s Weapons Officer had something implanted in her neck, could that explain why she transmitted those orders to launch nukes on Earth? Those orders were a mystery, and now Molitor’s CO was acting strangely, leaving orbit with crew still on the ground when there didn’t seem to be any good reason to leave so quickly. She had to find Schmidt and tell him what she had just seen.
74 days later:
Molitor stepped onto the Bridge and looked around carefully. No one was looking in her direction. She had a medical injection pistol inside her uniform jacket and was worried that someone would see the bulge and say something to attract the CO’s attention. No one seemed to notice it, though, as she walked over to stand slightly behind and a little to one side of the Command Station chair where the CO was seated. The tactical image on the main display showed Midgard’s moon with the ship only a couple of minutes away from the orbital reconnaissance that their mission plan called for. The CO had briefed his officers about this mission. Majestic was convinced that the attack on Hadley had been carried out by the SSU Brain Trust, but in order to cover all possibilities, every planet, moon or asteroid that was known to have high concentrations of metals was to be looked over very carefully. And since Midgard’s moon had already been used once to build rebel warships, it was the first mission target on their list.
Molitor didn’t know what, if anything, they’d find here, but she knew what she was going to do if they did find something. Over the past 85 days, she, Schmidt, Abernathy and several other officers who had been brought up to speed had seen enough unusual behaviour by the CO to confirm their suspicions that the metal device on his neck was affecting his behavior and possibly his judgement too. Casual remarks by the CO in the Officer’s Lounge about needing to ‘thin out the herd with nukes’ clashed with the almost pacifist attitude that, prior to the midnight visit to the Complex, he had generally displayed regarding the subject of attacks on civilians. Plus, he was now taking deliberate actions to avoid letting anyone see the back of his neck when previously he had exercised in the recreation area bare-chested. Each anomaly by itself could be explained away harmlessly, but when all the pieces were put together, it was clear to her and the others that the CO was not in control of himself, and she was convinced he hadn’t let that happen voluntarily. As worthy a goal as the Empire might be, there was no justification for abusing individuals like that. She shivered with the thought that if ship COs could be forced to accept those implants, then so could ship XOs.
So she would wait to see if they found any unusual mining or
extraction activity on Midgard’s moon, and if they did, and if the CO wanted to nuke it, she would stop him with a knockout drug.
The first complete pass over the moon took less than 30 minutes. It revealed only one spot that had suspicious activity worthy of a second, closer look. As the ship hovered over that spot at an altitude of a couple of hundred kilometers, its optical sensors zoomed in and noticed regular plumes of hot gases spewing from the ground. Spectral analysis of the gases showed them to be the by-product of smelting activity rather than something that occurred naturally.
“Weps, prepare to launch a missile with a ground-penetrating, Mark 5 warhead,” ordered the CO. Molitor looked at the Weapons Officer, who returned the gaze. He was part of her cadre of in-the-know officers. She shook her head ever so slightly. He nodded just as slightly and pretended to manipulate his weapons console.
As the Weapons Officer reported that the missile was ready for launch, Molitor quickly pulled the injection pistol from her jacket pocket and held it a centimeter from the exposed part of the CO’s neck. She pressed the trigger and the pistol fired tiny ice crystals at a high enough speed to penetrate the skin. The CO reacted instantly, so fast in fact that it caught Molitor by surprise. He jumped up and spun around to face her. Before she could react, he slapped the pistol from her hand and grabbed her by the throat. Her second surprise was how strong his grip was. With that much strength he could snap my neck! Just as she gave existence to that thought, the grip slackened quickly and the CO sagged to the floor.
As she massaged her bruised throat, she looked around the Bridge. Everyone was looking at her with shocked expressions, even the Weapons Officer, although his shock was not for what happened but rather for how quickly it happened.
“Everyone stay where you are and remain calm,” she said in what she hoped was a calm but firm voice. “The Skipper has been under control of a device that was implanted at the back of his neck. I’ll show you.” She put one knee on the CO’s back to make sure he didn’t jump up again and folded back his jacket collar. The metal device was plainly visible, and the tiny lights were blinking furiously. She made sure that everyone on the Bridge was able to see the implant before ordering the Com Technician to call two Marines with restraints to the Bridge. After being briefed on why the ship’s CO was unconscious on the floor and seeing the implant, the marines applied the restraints to the CO and carried him off the Bridge and on to Sick Bay. There the ship’s Chief Medical Officer, who already knew what to expect, was waiting to see if the implant could be removed safely.
“Listen up, people,” said Molitor. “I’m assuming command of this ship. What you’ve just seen is an attempt by rogue forces within the command structure to hijack the Empire for their own selfish purposes. Every ship CO now has one of those implants in their necks. I believe they were forced to accept them, and I’m convinced that if we return to Hadley, I and eventually all of you will be forced to accept an implant as well. Therefore returning to Hadley is not an option for us. If we’re going to stop this hideous threat, we’ll need help. Right now the only organized military force not under Empire control that I know of seems to be in this star system. I intend to make contact with them and ask for their help. Does anyone have a problem with that?” She slowly looked at everyone and saw them all shake their heads in the negative.
“Good! Then let’s head for Midgard. That’s where they have to be building ships.”
It was almost 24 hours before they were able to identify a location on Midgard where there seemed to be some kind of industrial activity that the locals were attempting to hide. It was inside an extinct volcano. Whoever was responsible for that operation had gone to great lengths to keep it from being detected. There were no visible lights at night, and the level of heat radiating out of the volcano was barely higher than the ambient temperature. The giveaway was a small air vehicle that was tracked flying into the volcano in the middle of the night and not coming out for several hours. Based on that suspicious activity, Molitor ordered the ship to hover almost 50 kilometers over the volcano and wait until the local sun was at its highest point in the sky. The ship’s opticals were able to zoom in enough to see movement inside the volcano. With that confirmation, Molitor ordered the ship to drop down to the same height as the top of the volcano and hover about 100 meters away. They then settled down to wait.
Murphy climbed aboard the air-bus with the rest of the people who were due some R&R and settled down in a seat for the 89 minute ride. He wasn’t going into the city to have fun. There were logistical matters that required face-to-face meetings between him and several city officials. Once those were taken care of, he intended to spend a few more hours getting a good night’s sleep in a comfortable hotel bed before coming back. Living quarters at the Base were utilitarian at best. Making the Base personnel comfortable hadn’t been a high priority for Admiral Chenko and General Masterson when they were supervising the operation, and now it was even lower. When everyone was aboard and seated, Murphy leaned forward, looked towards the flight deck, and said, “Okay, Lieutenant, we’re ready back here.”
The air-bus started to rise vertically. Murphy could tell by the brightness of the outside light through the cabin windows that they were getting near the top of the volcano. Just as the vehicle reached the top, he heard the Pilot exclaim in a shocked voice, “Oh shit!” The air-bus stopped moving. Before Murphy could ask what the problem was, the Pilot shouted to him in a voice that was on the verge of panic. “Commander, you better get up here right now!”
Murphy sprinted for the open flight deck door. The Pilot was pointing to the right, and as Murphy entered the flight deck, he saw what the Pilot was pointing at. It was a very large and very menacing-looking spaceship that had multiple flat sides similar to the Sorcerer. Oh, God, they’ve found us! He instinctively closed his eyes and clenched his muscles in anticipation of the laser fire that was surely about to cut through the air-bus’s thin aluminum skin any second now.
“Son-of-a-bitch, they’re opening their Hangar Bay!” said the Pilot. Murphy opened his eyes and saw that the Pilot was right. He looked at the Pilot who looked back at him.
“It seems they want us to fly inside,” said Murphy in what he hoped was a calm voice.
“Sounds like a good idea to me,” came the less panic-stricken reply.
They’ve had plenty of time to burn us down by now if they were going to do that. The fucking Empire has finally won. The bitterness of that realization was hard to swallow. The Pilot was obviously waiting for instructions. Murphy bowed his head and said in a low voice, “Might as well fly us in, Lieutenant.”
As the air-bus flew slowly into the cavernous Hangar Bay, Murphy saw a row of armed troopers and several unarmed individuals standing in front of them. The landing area where the vehicle was to set down was lit up with landing lights. Before Murphy could tell the Pilot to land there, the Pilot said, “I see it, Commander.”
As the air-bus landed, Murphy went back into the passenger compartment and told the others that they might as well accept the fact that they were now Empire prisoners. The cabin door folded down to provide steps, and before Murphy had a chance to exit the vehicle, a woman wearing a uniform with the rank insignia of a Lt. Commander quickly entered the compartment. Her expression threw him off guard. It seemed to be a mixture of friendliness and relief! The name tag on her uniform read R. Molitor. She spoke first.
“Commander…Murphy? Rachel Molitor, Acting CO of the Tigershark. Don’t be alarmed, Commander. This isn’t what you think, and I’m not going to demand your surrender. I’m here to talk.” She paused for half a second and then said in a surprisingly desperate voice, “I…we, need your help.”
An hour later Murphy was standing in Tigershark’s Sick Bay looking into a quarantine room where the body of the ship’s former commanding officer was strapped face down to a medical table. His upper torso was bare, and the automated examination equipment was scanning the metal device at the back of the patient’s neck
. A screen was showing a computer enhanced image of the interior of the man’s neck and brain. Red lines were leading from the device into his brain.
“Those red lines are extremely thin wires that have been pushed into the sections of the brain where speech and cognition originate,” said the Chief Medical Officer standing next to Murphy. “The device is capable of sensing when the host is doing or saying something it’s not supposed to be doing or saying, and then the wires give enough of an electrical jolt to cause severe pain. It apparently can also sense when someone is trying to remove it, and if that happens, it gives the host a big enough jolt to induce death. We found that out the hard way.”
“My God, that’s monstrous,” said Murphy in a low voice. He turned to look at Molitor. “No wonder you didn’t go back. I’d have done the same thing in your boots.”
Molitor sighed and shook her head. “Frankly that endorsement doesn’t help much. I still feel like I’m on the wrong side here. What that damned computer is doing to our people doesn’t change the fact that Civilization is doomed to centuries of chaos and anarchy unless there’s a strong central government that’s willing and able to keep the peace.” She looked at Murphy’s face carefully. “You’re not convinced of that, are you?” she asked.
