On The Imperium’s Secret Service (Imperium Cicernus) (24 page)

He made a face. 

“But we have to deal with him directly,” he said, finally.  “We cannot risk bringing the rest of Imperial Intelligence in on this.”

“Because they might be compromised,” Mariko said.  She rolled her eyes.  “I thought Imperial Intelligence was supposed to be incorruptible, never resting in its pursuit of the Imperium’s enemies.”

“That damned
The Man From The Double-Eye
entertainment series has a lot to answer for,” Fitz muttered.  “Imperial Intelligence spends more time promoting itself to the public rather than actually developing sources in alien empires and positioning assets in threatened sectors.”

“It can't be easy to get aliens willing to help the Imperium,” Mariko said, remembering what had happened to Greenland.  Perhaps the reason Archie was so unconcerned was because he had Slimes whispering in his ear, telling him how grateful they were for the destruction of their world and the enslavement of their entire race.  “How many assets do they have in the Snake Empire?”

“I wouldn't know,” Fitz said.  “They’re not supposed to tell me anything I don’t need to know.”

Mariko knew him well enough by now to know what he wasn't saying.  It was quite possible that there were
no
assets in the Snake Empire, or that what assets there were consisted of Snakes who were actually working for their own people, whispering soothing lies into Imperial Intelligence’s ears.  Besides, the Snakes were several dozen light years from the Imperium’s borders.  Someone with an eye on the budget might point out that they were less immediately threatening than the countless rebel groups within the Imperium itself.

“I’m going to have to send a report from Sumter to my superiors,” he added.  “If we’re lucky, we might convince them to send some support – and perhaps a team from the IG to turn Admiral Von Rutherford’s fiefdom upside down.  Maybe that would force the Secessionists to pull in their horns long enough to give us a chance to build new defences.”

“You don’t sound confident,” Mai noted.

“I’m not,” Fitz admitted.  “Homeworld has too many other problems to worry about the Rim right now.  Too many people crying wolf for the Grand Senate’s peace of mind.”

Mariko tapped the table.  “So we find him and then...what?”

“We want to turn him into a source for us, ideally,” Fitz said.  “We need to know what he’s done for the Secessionists and what standing orders they’ve given him, if any.  There will be at least one Secessionist agent on Sumter, probably unconnected with the public face of the Secessionist League, who will be collecting his reports and passing them on to higher authority.  We have to find that person and use him to lead us onwards to his superiors.  Chances are there will probably be a cut-out or two along the way.  The Secessionists haven’t survived this long by being stupid.

“Failing that, we kill him and make it look like an accident.”

Mariko stared at him, seeing the ruthlessness hiding behind his pleasant face.  The Imperium would try Richardson and probably execute him for espionage, but that was a far cry from killing him themselves.  She opened her mouth to protest and then realised that there was no point.  Fitz was right; they couldn't leave Richardson in place, not when he was betraying the entire Imperium to the Secessionists – and through them, the Snakes.  And yet it felt badly wrong to murder someone in cold blood, no matter how justified.

“I’ll go through the remaining chips and see if there’s anything useful they can tell us,” Fitz continued, seemingly unaware of her inner thoughts.  “Convicting Richardson will be easy; convicting Lady Mary will be a great deal harder.  She may have been exiled, but the rest of the aristocracy will close ranks behind her unless the evidence is damning.  The last thing they want is to give the commoners a chance to see their betters dying – it might give them ideas.”

He looked over at Mai.  “Bring us out of Phase Space on the edge of the Karats System,” he ordered.  “We have some work to do before we reach the wormhole and slip into Sumter.  I think it's time that Lord Fitzgerald was put to one side.”

Mariko blinked in surprise.  “You don’t intend to announce yourself when you reach Sumter?”

“The Admiral is something of a social climber,” Fitz said, with palpable annoyance.  “If I go in openly as Lord Fitzgerald, he will demand that I stay at the official residence, attend various parties and generally brighten up his dining table.  It will make it difficult to snatch Richardson without attracting attention from the official Imperial Intelligence operatives on Sumter.”

He grinned.  “And besides, the
Bruce Wayne
has been seen too much recently,” he added.  “It’s time for a change.  And this ship is truly remarkable when it comes to changing its identity.”

Mariko frowned. 

“But she’s a very recognisable space yacht,” she pointed out.

“Wait and see,” Fitz assured her.  “Just wait and see.”

Karats was a fairly normal system, illuminated by an average G2 star.  From the reports that Mariko had read, the original survey team had found nothing of great interest, apart from a habitable world and a gas giant for mining.  There was no native intelligent race, which meant that the development corporation hadn't had to commit any atrocities to make the world suitable for human life.  At the last census, conducted five years ago, Karats was home to over twenty thousand humans, mainly farmers and asteroid miners from the
Core Worlds.  It was rated as a nice, quiet place to live.

Edo had been founded in an attempt to preserve what the founders could of traditional Japanese culture, although Mariko suspected that the culture they practiced had mutated considerably over the thousands of years since humanity had spread across the stars.  Karats was much less dogmatic about who they allowed to settle, but then a new world wouldn't be in a good position to object to almost anyone.  The only settlement bar was on Indents and aliens.  Karat was a
human
world, and would remain so.

Shaking her head, she turned the spacesuit around and looked at the
Bruce Wayne
.  This far from the system primary, she was only illuminated by her running lights, which revealed a very strange sight indeed.  Some of the luxury flashes on her hull – stubby wings and ‘go-faster’ stripes – were receding into the metal, while the colour was changing into the black and red lines of Interstellar Couriers.  In hindsight, Mariko hadn't been too surprised to discover that there was a link between Imperial Intelligence and Interstellar Couriers, which had a reputation as the fastest shipping line in the Imperium.  Interstellar Couriers could send a ship anywhere and no one would look any further than the cover story.  Fitz had produced paperwork for his ship which he swore blind was real, if not something he had intended to use openly.  The IFF had already been reprogrammed to claim that the ship was actually the
Wally West
, a fast courier.  Anyone who looked inside the ship would know that she wasn't a courier, but the paperwork should prevent anyone from growing too curious.  Interstellar Couriers had a very close relationship with the Grand Senate, and no one wanted to provoke them too far.  Entire worlds had been embargoed for meddling with Interstellar Couriers in the past.

Her radio crackled in her ear.  “How does it look?”

“Remarkable,” Mariko admitted.  She’d volunteered to go outside the ship to watch with the naked eye as the ship underwent its transformation.  Programmable hull metal and paint – and nanotech worked into the hull – was good, but it had its limitations.  “She looks perfect enough to fool me.”

“Swing around the hull and check everywhere,” Fitz ordered. 

He seemed amused and Mariko knew why.  She’d expressed her doubts too loudly. 

“And then come back inside.  We have an operation to plan.”

Mariko muttered an acknowledgement and keyed the console on her suit’s arm.  Some people could never bear to walk in space – they were convinced that they were falling, even though they weren’t – but she loved it.  The sense of freedom, of flying through the universe all on her own, was remarkable, only made stronger by the absolute silence of space.  All around her, stars burned in the darkness, without the twinkling that groundhogs took for granted.  No wonder that the Cyborgs of Calculus had attracted so many volunteers before they’d turned into a nightmare of flesh fused with metal.  They could walk in space without even needing a spacesuit. 

There were a handful of new blisters she hadn't seen before, hidden in the ship’s hull until they were necessary.  One of the other reasons why no one messed with Interstellar Couriers was that their ships were always armed to the teeth. 
Bruce Wayne
had hidden her weapons under the programmable hull;
Wally West
proudly displayed them to the universe.  A real warship could have destroyed her, of course, but she would have had to catch the courier boat first. 

“Everything seems to be fine,” she said, finally.  “Do you want to check, too?”

“I will later,” Fitz assured her.  “Come on back inside.  We have work to do.”

Mariko obeyed, steering the suit towards the airlock and dropping neatly into it as the ship’s artificial gravity field reasserted itself.  The first time she’d re-entered a ship, she’d landed in a rather undignified manner, coming right down on her ass.  Now she was almost a professional at EVA, even though it was something she just hadn't been able to do enough for her satisfaction.  The
Happy Wanderer
had kept them too busy as they moved from world to world.

She sealed the airlock behind her, stepped into the middle chamber and began the task of removing the spacesuit.  At least she’d been able to wear her normal clothes under the suit’s protective coverings, unlike the suits they’d used for training back on Edo.  The instructors had claimed that it was a taste of what early spaceflight had been like, but the cadets had universally agreed that it was just another form of torture for prospective pilots.  Mai had taken to it like a duck to water, although
she
had later admitted that she didn't like EVA very much.  Mariko had been happy to take all of the EVA burden upon herself.

Leaving the suit behind, she walked through the ship’s corridors until she reached the dining room.  Fitz was sitting at a table, working on a pair of ID cards.  He grinned up at her as she entered, waving for her to take a seat on the sofa besides Mai.  Mariko flushed, unaccountably convinced that they had been talking about her, and then blinked in surprise as Fitz tossed one of the ID cards to her.  It landed in her lap and she picked it up thoughtfully, studying it carefully.  The top legend ran IMPERIAL INTELLIGENCE and identified her as a senior intelligence officer, with a line of code numbers that could have meant anything.  There was no name, only a picture that made her look as if she’d been dead for a year and dug up just long enough for the picture to be taken.    It made her look cruel and heartless, she decided.

Fitz chuckled when she said it out loud. 

“Imperial Intelligence Investigators are
meant
to be cruel and heartless,” he said.  “E Branch – never mind about the others right now – is specifically charged with watching for disloyalty, espionage, corruption and other naughtiness among the Imperium’s personnel.  It has close ties with the Inspectorate General, which has the same basic mission, but unlike the IG it attempts to turn enemy agents rather than just eliminate them.  By the time we reach Sumter, you are going to be word perfect on these details.  They might save your life.”

Mariko stared at him.  “But will these cards pass if someone checks them?”

Fitz’s grin widened.  “Anyone who checks them will get a coded response confirming your authority – which, just incidentally, isn't limited to just forcing people to answer your questions.  You can commandeer entire starships if you want, or get the support of everyone from the Marines to the Civil Guard.  And you could even draw on the vast funds available to Imperial Intelligence and buy an entire planet if you wanted it.”

“But we don’t work for Imperial Intelligence,” Mariko protested.  She was stunned.  She had known that Imperial Intelligence enjoyed powers beyond almost anyone else, but this was too much.  “Surely someone would question us...”

Fitz assumed a contemplative pose.