Imperium: Contact

by Kabbabe, Malek

  The troop shuttles were basically a small cockpit attached to a large armored box with rounded edges. They were topped with angled rear stabilizers and short wings to provide some aerodynamics during atmosphere missions. The shuttles deployed their stubby landing skids. Their sides slammed down to form ramps, down which human soldiers in vacuum suites poured. The soldiers ran towards the barracks.

  “Everyone get back!” One of the warriors yelled.

  “Get away from the airlock and find whatever cover you can.”

  Shassa and the others quickly made their way to the second room that made up the barracks, the sleeping quarters. She squatted behind a bunk and watched through the open doorway as the warriors hastily reinforced their positions. The inner airlock doors slowly hissed open. The warriors scrambled behind their cover and hefted their weapons. Shassa recognized them as some of the new human guns Karss and his gang had brought with them.

  The airlock doors had now slid open completely to reveal a group five human soldiers with Gauss rifles leveled. Two of the warriors whipped out from behind their cover and fired. A hailstorm of slugs ripped into the humans, sending them flying backward with the force of the impact. A second later all that was left of them was a pile of mangled corpses.

  One of the warriors let out a shrieking war cry. All around her, Shassa could see others tentatively poking their heads out from behind bunks. The next second the outer airlock doors shattered. The air around them turned into a hurricane as it rushed into space. Shassa felt herself being lifted off her feet. She grabbed hold of the bunk she'd been hiding behind and tried to keep from passing out in the rapidly thinning air. The torrent of air swirling past her lessened but now her vision was fading; everything around her was going dark. Shassa gasped slumping to the floor, before she could do anything else she slipped into unconsciousness.

  Vice-Admiral Jones stood on the bridge of the Emperor's Fist scanning the readouts on the various tactical stations. Beside him Captain Gerard turned to the communications officer.

  “Lieutenant, I want a status report from the boarding party.”

  “Yes Captain,” the com officer replied.

  “Emperor's Fist to boarding party Commander, report.”

  The Lieutenant listened intently.

  “Copy that Major,” he said finally.

  “Stand by.”

  “Captain,” said the lieutenant, swiveling his chair to face Gerard.

  “Major Chavez reports initial incursion into the barracks met with failure, the five man team he sent in was killed. He subsequently blew open the outer airlock doors with a shaped charge. The inner airlock doors were open at the time, causing the barracks to decompress explosively.”

  “What did he find in there?” Asked Jones.

  “As we suspected from the sensor scans, a group of shengyet,” replied the Lieutenant.

  “All shengyet, no humans?”

  “No sir, Major Chavez didn't report any humans present.”

  “Any shengyet survive?” Asked Captain Gerard.

  “Yes sir, Major Chaves reported the entire group still alive, he's got them aboard one of the troop shuttles.”

  “Very well,” said Jones.

  “Captain, I want those shengyet brought aboard the ship immediately. Put them in the brig for now and send Chavez to my office for an immediate debriefing.”

  “Yes sir,” replied Gerard.

  “Carry on Captain,” said Jones and left the bridge.

  Five minutes later he was sitting back in his quarters, when there was a soft knock at his door.

  “Enter.”

  “Major Chavez reporting as ordered Vice-Admiral.”

  “Come in Major, and sit down,” said Jones, indicating the chair on the other side of his desk.

  “Thank you sir.”

  “Now then Major, I wish to ask you a few questions about what happened down there.”

  Chavez, looking a little nervous, straightened in his chair.

  “I assume you and your team executed a thorough search of those barracks?”

  “Yes sir, we checked every inch,” Chavez assured him.

  “During the course of that search, did you come across any equipment or data storage units that might tell us how these shengyet ended up there?”

  “No sir, all they had in there were food stuffs, spare parts and a few weapons. Pretty much the standard things the average shengyet pirate group would be carrying around.”

  “Nothing out of the ordinary?” Asked Jones.

  “Well out of the ordinary, yes sir there was,” replied Chavez.

  “Among the debris we found seven brand new R6 rifles.”

  “What!?” Snapped Jones.

  “R6 rifles sir and what was even stranger about the whole thing, was that these didn't have any serial numbers anywhere.”

  “So they were removed?”

  “No sir, as far as I could tell they were never even made with one.”

  Jones felt a slight shiver run down his spine. Trying to hide his sudden unease he took a deep breath.

  “Very well Major, you may go.”

  “Thank you Vice-Admiral.”

  Jones keyed the com panel on his desk. A moment later a man with dark brown eyes and short, black hair appeared on the monitor. His rough, angular face looked weary, but he straightened immediately when he saw who he was talking to.

  “Vice-Admiral,” he said.

  “What can I do for you sir?”

  “Lieutenant Harbid, you're the senior intelligence officer on this ship is that correct?”

  “Yes sir, I am.”

  “How much time would you need to setup and begin interrogations of the shengyet we currently have in our brig?”

  Harbid frowned.

  “Well that depends sir,” he said slowly.

  “Exactly how many shengyet are there and how hard would you like me to push them for answers?”

  “As to the exact number I don't know, but I'll give you full access to Major Chavez's mission report. As to how hard you can push them. I’ll leave that up to you, just get me the information I need. This group of shengyet escaped us at Eridanus Five with the help of a human ship. I want to know why and where that ship went after dropping them here.”

  “Very well sir.”

  “Oh and one more thing Lieutenant, once you've read Chavez's mission report, I want you to delete it.”

  Harbid looked confused.

  “Delete an official mission report?” He asked skeptically.

  “Yes Lieutenant, I trust you don't have a problem with that?”

  “N-no sir,” said Harbid quickly.

  “However, I don't have the necessary access codes to do that.”

  “I will forward the codes to you Lieutenant,” Jones assured him.

  “Understood Admiral, do you require anything else?”

  “Just inform me as soon as you have any results.”

  “Yes Admiral,” said Harbid and the view screen turned black.

  Jones nervously drummed his fingers on the desk in front of him. Abruptly coming to a decision he once again keyed the com panel. This time the connection took over a minute to establish, in the meantime Jones resumed his nervous drumming. Finally, the face of an old man wearing an expensive suite appeared, his image blurring in and out of focus.

  “Vice-Admiral,” said the man in a surprised, static filled voice.

  “I didn't expect to hear from you anytime soon.”

  “Nor did I expect to be contacting you Peters,” replied Jones.

  “But it seems I was under the mistaken impression that we had a deal.”

  The man's eyes widened.

  “Of course we do, what makes you think we don't?”

  “The fact that an Imperial recon team just found seven of the rifles I sold you!” Spat Jones.

  Even with the image as distorted as it was, Jones could see Peters stiffen.

  “They what?!” He exclaimed.

  “They found seven bra
nd new R6 rifles with absolutely no serial numbers, in the remains of a shengyet hideout,” said Jones in an icy voice.

  “I see,” Peters replied slowly.

  “I thought the whole reason for our little arrangement was to convince the Imperial military to launch another campaign against the shengyet,” he continued.

  “Yes it was,” snarled Jones.

  “But you assured me you could maneuver the shengyet into attacking Imperial targets, without any of it being traced back to you or me.”

  “And what exactly was I supposed to do?” Scoffed Peters.

  “Ask the shengyet to kindly attack a major Imperial installation or maybe a capital ship? They're not stupid you know, they wouldn't draw that kind of attention to themselves unless it was worth the risk.”

  “And you couldn't find anything else to lure them with?” Jones demanded.

  “No, I couldn't,” Peters replied flatly.

  “It had to be something they would normally never be able to get their hands on.”

  Jones glared at the view screen.

  “There's no point to any of this if someone ends up connecting either of us to the attack.”

  “Don't worry Admiral, I covered my tracks well,” Peters assured him.

  “Oh I certainly hope so.”

  “I did, there's absolutely no way for anyone to figure out I had even a fingertip in this.”

  “Fine, just make sure you don't go spreading around more of those rifles.”

  “Don't worry about it, those were the only ones I sent anywhere. The rest are being used by my private security force and they only go wherever I do.”

  Jones continued to glare at the view screen, but he knew Peters was right.

  “Nice hearing from you as always Vice-Admiral,” said Peters with not quite sarcasm.

  Jones viciously jabbed his finger at the com panel's power button and the display went black.

  Chapter 17

  Shassa's mind slowly made its way back to consciousness. Her eyelids fluttered open and she immediately shut them again as bright artificial light stabbed at her retinas. She was now beginning to feel the rest of her body and suddenly realized she was lying on a bed. No, not a bed, more like a hard metal bunk. She gingerly sat up and slowly opened her eyes.

  Her blotchy vision sharpened as her eyes adjusted to the light. Shassa breathed deeply trying to clear her head. She noted there was something wrong with the air, it tasted wrong, slightly metallic. Shassa felt her breath catch in her throat. She'd tasted air like this before, a long time ago. In the ships her people had used to escape their home world, human ships.

  Shassa wrenched her eyes fully open forcing them to adjust as quickly as possible. She was in a large rectangular room filled with plain metal bunks. Three bunks high and running the length of either side of the room, with a narrow corridor between them. At the far end of the corridor there was a heavy metal door. On the bunks around her lay others from her clan, some still unconscious others stirring feebly and still others lying or sitting in their bunks seemingly frozen in terror. Judging from the soft rumbling, the ship's engines were engaged. They were moving, but where? Some human prison facility? Then again, why was she even alive? The humans almost never took shengyet prisoners in a fight, and certainly not those they deemed pirates. It must have something to do with the mission Anna and Chieftain Saskill had embarked on.

  Suddenly the metal door slid open, revealing a dozen human soldiers holding long black batons.

  “Get up all of you!” Yelled the foremost soldier.

  He jabbed the end of his baton into the nearest shengyet lying on his bunk. Shassa could see the white flash of electric discharge as it surged from the baton's tip. The shengyet cried out in pain and jerked convulsively.

  “I said up!” The soldier yelled again.

  Everyone scrambled to their feet. Six of the soldiers marched down one side of the hallway, shoving the prisoners to the front of the room and making sure there was no one left in their bunk.

  Shassa started to move towards the front of the room, when she heard a terrified little squeak to her left. She turned to see a little shengyet girl in her bunk huddled into a ball. The girl sat there gently rocking back and forth and trembling all over. One of the soldiers must have noticed Shassa's hesitation, because he marched toward her.

  “Are you deaf? Get moving!”

  He reached her and spotted the girl.

  “Hey, get out of that bunk,” he snapped.

  “She's terrified,” said Shassa.

  The soldier rounded on her.

  “Did I ask you a question?” He said flicking his baton at her so the end sparked.

  Shassa shook her head.

  The soldier turned back to the girl.

  “Get out of there, now!”

  The girl simply continued to sit there rocking back and forth. The guard jabbed her with his baton. The girl's limbs jerked and twitched as the electric pulse went through her. She whimpered and curled into a ball. The soldier moved his baton toward her for a second jab.

  “Stop it!” Shassa cried.

  The soldier turned to face her and the next second Shassa felt pain searing through her body as the baton hit her. She staggered against the bunk almost losing her balance.

  “You want me to stop?” He said icily.

  “Get that little runt moving or I'll shock the both of you until this thing runs out of juice.”

  Shassa bent down and gently picked up the girl. She had stopped crying but Shassa could feel her entire body trembling in her arms.

  “Now move it!” The soldier snapped.

  Shassa moved forward, the little girl wrapped her arms around Shassa's neck and buried her face in her shoulder.

  Everyone was now at the front of the room, with the six soldiers bringing up the rear and the rest in front.

  “Move out!” One of the soldiers in front ordered.

  The group moved through the doors into a hallway whose floor; ceiling and walls were made of metal. They'd moved about twenty meters further along when the lead soldier stopped by a door to his right. He pressed his thumb against the scanner pad next to the door and it slid open.

  “Get in,” he yelled.

  Shassa and the others filled through the door.

  Inside was another metal lined room similar to the one they had just left. Except that this one was substantially longer and wider. Along the sides instead of bunks, there were rows of doors. The doors slid open, revealing small prison cells. The soldiers started shoving them into these. One soldier pushed Shassa and the girl into a cell and the door slammed shut behind her.

  The cell was a simple square room with nothing in it.

  Shassa bent down and tried to lower the girl into a corner but she simply clung to her, refusing to let go. She sat down in the corner with the girl on her lap, the girl's face still pressed against her shoulder. She had started crying again. Shassa placed her arms around the girl gently stroking the back of her head. Shassa's thoughts raced back decades ago, to when she had been a little girl, clutching her mother in terror as humans invaded their world.

  Lieutenant Harbid sighed and logged out of the terminal he'd been working at. It was done, he'd erased Major Chavez's report and made sure no one would miss it. The Admiral's security code had made it relatively easy, but none of this sat well with him. He didn't know much about Vice-Admiral Jones, but he knew enough not to trust him. Harbid had no clue why an entire task force was out here, or why the Vice-Admiral had gone to such trouble to capture a group of shengyet and then have any official record of it removed. He didn't have to understand to know this meant trouble and he wasn't going to get caught up in someone's game of Imperial politics. To hell with Jones and this whole operation, Harbid was going to report this! He logged back into the terminal and started typing a report.

  He had just finished his report to fleet high command on Earth when the door to the intelligence office slid open. A young woman with short blond hair and
light brown eyes walked in. She had a kind face that instantly put one at ease.

  “I see you're hard at work James,” she said smiling at him.

  Despite himself, Harbid felt his face twitch with a smile. He quickly rearranged it into a stern look.

  “Ensign Smith,” he began.

  “We are on duty, I am to be addressed as Lieutenant Harbid.”

  Ensign Katie Smith was one of the intelligence officers who served under Harbid aboard the Emperor's Fist. She never seemed to take her duty too seriously and often displayed a cheerfully casual behavior that at times bordered on insubordination. She usually got away with it for one simple reason. She was damn good at her job. In fact Harbid had never met another intelligence operative with anything close to her ability and the Ensign knew it.

  As he'd expected, Harbid's stern gaze did nothing to break the woman's cheerful mood.

  “Don't you ever get tired of telling me that?” She asked lightly.

  Harbid shook his head in a resigned way.

  “Yeah, I got tired of it after about the hundredth time, but for some reason I just keep trying.”

  Katie smiled still more broadly.

  “Don't give up James, two hundredth time's the charm.”

  “I think were closer to a thousand by now.”

  Katie laughed.

  Lieutenant Harbid straightened himself in his chair.

  “So, what can I do for you Ensign?” He Asked.

  “You wanted to be informed as soon as the shengyet prisoners had been moved,” Katie replied.

  “Ah yes, thank you Ensign, but you know you could have just used the com instead of coming here yourself.”

  Her face darkened slightly and her cheerful air vanished.

  “James…I,” she began.

  “It's just, something about all this feels wrong.”

  “I know,” replied Harbid.

  “What are we even doing here?” She asked.

  “I have no idea Ensign, but Vice-Admiral Jones must have his reasons.”