On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus) (54 page)

“It can't be done that quickly,” Mai insisted.  “I need to bring down the link to the rest of the Imperium first, then we can concentrate on trying to save the sector’s wormholes – or bringing them down as painlessly as possible.”

She hesitated.  “But I think we can cheat...”

Fitz chuckled.  “I like the way you think,” he said.  “Do it.  Do it
now
!”

Mariko blinked at him.  He’d clearly figured out exactly what Mai had in mind.  But she was baffled.

Mai’s hands danced over the control panel.  “The wormholes are really nothing more than bridges between two singularities,” she said, “caused by both singularities resonating in the same harmonic pattern.  Thing is, there is no actual
distance
between the entrance and exit as long as the harmonics are maintained.  Understand?”

Mariko shook her head, knowing that Mai wouldn't be able to see it inside her helm.  “No,” she said, finally.  “What do you intend to do to them?”

On the display, the first of the Snake ships plunged into the wormhole – and came out of the other end a drifting wreck.  Others followed, spinning out in total disarray, even colliding with their fellows before they could escape...they weren't even
trying
to escape.  Mariko stared in absolute disbelief as the entire fleet poured out of the wormhole, some ships nothing more than piles of wreckage in a vaguely ship-like form.  And
none
of them seemed to be under any form of intelligent control.

“They’ll have to sweep the lanes before they can be used safety,” Fitz commented, with heavy satisfaction.  “Good work, Mai.”

Mariko found her voice.  “What happened to them?”

“She altered the distance between the two singularities,” Fitz said, quietly.  “For the Snakes, the voyage took over a million years.  They all died in the wormhole, hundreds of thousands of years before they reached the far end, while it took bare seconds for us.  I’d heard that it might be possible, but no one was ever willing to test the theory.”

Spacers told tales of being stranded out in interstellar space, forced to use stasis pods to remain alive while their ships crawled towards the nearest colonised star at sublight speeds.  It could take centuries to get home, even if they only had to cross a single light-year.  No
wonder
the Snakes were all dead.  Even the solidest technology built by the Imperium wouldn't last a million years. 

“My God,” Mariko breathed, finally understanding.  “How...?”

Part of her felt sorry for the Snakes, trapped in a pocket dimension and crawling towards the edge with no hope of escape.  The rest of her knew what the Snakes had intended to do when they reached Sumter, starting with betraying their Secessionist allies.  They could have ripped the Sector apart, destroying the remaining Imperial Navy ships before they had a chance to concentrate their forces against the new foe...no, she wouldn't mourn for them.  But, spacer to spacer, she would pity their crews.  They’d died fighting entropy itself. 

Mai swore as one of the consoles started to chime.  “The wormhole harmonics are reaching dangerous levels,” she said.  “We need to cut the link to the Imperium
now
.”

Fitz tapped his console, sending his final report through the Imperium’s datanet.  “Do it,” he ordered.  “Now.”

Mai ran her hand down the controls.  “Done,” she said. 

Mariko shot her a questioning look.  She was starting to feel useless. 

“I desynchronised the wormhole so badly that the link between it and its twin was cut sharply, before the rogue harmonics had a chance to infect the rest of the Imperium.  What they did was clever...”

“But can it be countered in future?”  Fitz asked, urgently.  “Can we stop them from trying it again?”

“I don’t see why not,” Mai admitted.  She nodded towards the consoles that monitored the wormholes, occasionally altering the singularities with modified lasers.  “The harmonics can be easily countered if you have the right tools and equipment.”

Mariko bit down a curse.  “I think we have a problem,” she said.  It was hard to be sure, reading through the wormhole distortion, but the pattern was becoming too clear to ignore.  “The remaining Secessionist ships are altering course.”

Fitz peered over her shoulder as the Secessionists scattered.  Most of the ships were retreating towards the phase limit, but one was coming towards the wormhole junction.  It read as a battlecruiser, although the files stored on the station refused to make a completely positive identification because it had been extensively modified by the Secessionists.  Behind them, the Imperial Navy ships on station had been crippled or destroyed by their enemies.  Mariko found herself wondering how the Imperium’s self-confidence would survive this day, even if the
Imperium
managed to survive.  Perhaps they’d take a tougher look at their safety precautions after this.

“That isn't good,” Fitz said.  He sounded...tired, too tired to continue. 

Mariko realised that they'd completed their mission.  They had; the Imperium’s wormholes would not be coming down and his superiors had been warned about the dangers.  Whatever happened in the Sumter Sector, the Imperium would survive until the next crisis. 

But that didn't make them
safe
.

“Lady Mary will want a little revenge for what we’ve done to her,” Fitz commented.

Mariko looked at him.  “So...what do we do?”

Fitz looked back at her.  “This station’s weapons have been disabled,” he said.  “Call in the
Bruce Wayne
; she can lift us off before Lady Mary opens fire.  And then we can escape, knowing that we have done our duty.”

Mariko linked into the
Bruce Wayne
and ordered the cloaked ship to head towards the station, but she didn't need to run a projection to know that they would be cutting it awfully tight.  Lady Mary’s sensors would probably be able to pick the ship out amidst the wormholes and if so, she’d simply open fire as soon as she entered range. 
Bruce Wayne
had had problems facing a light cruiser.  A battlecruiser would blow her apart before she could even return fire.

“I wonder...does she know what we’ve done?”  Mariko asked, out loud.  An idea was glimmering through her mind.  “Does she know that we have cut the wormhole link to the Imperium?”

“There’s no way to tell,” Mai said.  “All of the remaining wormholes in this sector are coming apart now; there’s nothing we can do to stop it.  The Wormhole Engineers will have to rebuild this part of the network from scratch.”

“Assuming they can,” Fitz said, tiredly.  It was quite possible that the Wormhole Engineers wouldn't be able to rebuild the network in the Sumter Sector for years.  They’d be busy trying to safeguard the remaining parts of the network first.  “This sector hasn't been very profitable for the Imperium.  They may just decide to write it off; leave it to the Snakes if they want it so desperately.  Or the Secessionists can do what they can for the Slimes and the other victims of the Imperium.”

Mariko took direct control of the
Bruce Wayne
as the little ship came into range.  Lady Mary’s battlecruiser was closing in rapidly, her sensors already locking onto the junction station and the small ship.  She keyed in a command for the
Bruce Wayne
to drop both shuttles and then alter course, launching drones to confuse Lady Mary’s sensors as much as possible.

Fitz caught her arm.  “I ought to hate you for this,” he said.  He knew what she had in mind, all right.  “But you’re right.  Do it.”

Mariko understood.  Few spacers would ever be happy losing their ships – and Fitz, whatever his flaws, loved the
Bruce Wayne
.  But there was no choice.  Quite calmly, she gunned the engines and forced the
Bruce Wayne
towards the battlecruiser at maximum acceleration.  There was a hint of hesitation from the battlecruiser and then she opened fire, too late.  The modified starship shrugged off the hits, evaded the missiles, and kept closing in...

Bruce Wayne
impacted directly with the battlecruiser and both ships vanished from the universe in a tearing sheet of fire.  There were no survivors.

Two of Homeworld’s three moons were rising in the sky as Mariko stared out over the endless cityscape.  Homeworld had been inhabited for so long that the cities had merged together into one giant metropolis, playing host to billions of humans and an uncounted number of aliens.  The High City, the very core of the Imperium, seemed to dominate the skyline for miles around, centred on the towering Imperial Palace, where the Childe Roland waited to achieve his majority.  It all seemed so safe and tranquil.

Thousands of aircars floated through the sky, while dozens of starships hung overhead, linked to the colossal orbital towers that formed Homeworld’s main link to the Imperium.  Mariko had been told that hundreds of thousands of citizens were deported every day, often for the merest of crimes, but such measures couldn't put more than the tiniest dent in Homeworld’s massive population.  Hundreds of starships carrying foodstuffs docked at the orbital towers, trying desperately to feed Homeworld; a single interruption in trade would be disastrous for the population.  And what would have happened, she asked herself, if Lady Mary had succeeded and interstellar trade had died along with the wormholes?  Homeworld would have collapsed into anarchy within the week.

She looked up as Fitz joined her on the balcony, placing one arm around her waist.  The flight back to Homeworld had been nightmarish, even though the
Happy Wanderer
had been untouched by the fighting around Sumter.  They hadn't been certain if the wormholes
hadn’t
collapsed, not until they’d crossed the sector line and entered the Glister Sector, the closest wormhole to Sumter that was still active.  Once they’d confirmed that the wormhole network was largely functioning, Fitz had used his emergency priority to get them to Homeworld over the next two days.  Mariko had never expected to see Homeworld – the trading cartels had the shipping locked up tight, which was a large part of the problem – but Fitz had been insistent.  They had to report to his superiors – and ensure that steps were taken to prevent anyone else trying to bring down the wormholes in the same way.

“Now the fun starts,” he said, dryly.

Mariko looked up at him.  “Fun?”

“Metaphorically speaking, of course,” Fitz said.  “We’re about to be debriefed by people who have rarely been in the field and know very little about the realities of active service.  And then we have to report to my...to my father.”

He shrugged.  “It won’t just be bad. It will be terrible.”

***

He
was right. 

Several days after entering the debriefing chamber, Mariko felt as if everything she knew had been torn from her mind, savagely questioned and then thrown back at her.  Some of the questioners seemed to know the subject matter better than she did; others were completely ignorant and didn't even try to hide it.  One of them even asked intrusive questions about her relationship with Fitz, as if that was any of his business.  Fitz had told her to answer all of the questions as completely and truthfully as possible, but it was hard to restrain herself from simply walking out of the chamber and going back to the ship.  Meeting Fitz again after the end of the sessions was a relief.

He looked as harried as she felt.  The interrogation – and it had been an interrogation – hadn't been aimed specifically at her.  This pleased her in some strange way she couldn't quite identify.

“I heard that Mai has been accepted into the Wormhole Engineers,” Fitz said, as they walked towards an aircar seated on its pad.  “They’ll make sure that she becomes a fine engineer – or dies trying.  And they’re terribly shocked by everything that happened on Sumter.  Mai might be able to kick them out of their complacency.”

“They seem to be the only ones who care,” Mariko said, sourly.  “Do you know that one of them even asked how many times we’d had sex before we fought at Sumter?”