Severed, p.1
Severed, page 1
part #4 of Imperial Hammer Series
Special Offer – Free Science Fiction
Space cities have been locked in war for centuries over the resources of an asteroid belt.
Humans pilot swarms of pod fighters to protect their city’s mining operations from other cities, risking everything and suffering multiple deaths and regenerations. Then Landry goes through a regeneration which introduces an error that will destroy the delicate balance of the war.
Resilience is a space opera short story by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper.
__
Epic science fiction at its finest. Realistic far future worlds. Incredible characters and scenarios. – Amazon reader.
This short story has not been commercially released for sale. It is only available as a gift to readers who subscribe to Cam’s email list.
Click here to get your copy:
https://cameroncooperauthor.com/resilience-free/
Table of Contents
Special Offer – Free Science Fiction
About Severed
Praise for The Imperial Hamer series:
Title Page
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Special Offer – Free Science Fiction
Did you enjoy this book? How to make a big difference!
About the Author
Other books by Cameron Cooper
Copyright Information
About Severed
Now Danny is the most wanted criminal in the Empire…
Danny has just barely averted the array’s plans to dominate the Empire, and now must face the wrath of the Imperial Shield, and dodge a galaxy full of Imperial Rangers who want her dead.
Until now, she has had the help of her crew and the fabulous ship, The Supreme Lythion, to get her through any challenges, but the array quickly sends her crew and the ship to the four corners of the known worlds, and isolates Danny in the worst circumstances.
She is severed from all she knows, with nothing to her name and must fight back one painful step at a time…
Severed is the fourth book in the Imperial Hammer space opera science fiction series by award-winning SF author Cameron Cooper.
The Imperial Hammer series:
1.0: Hammer and Crucible
2.0: Star Forge
3.0: Long Live the Emperor
4.0: Severed
5.0: Destroyer of Worlds
Space Opera Science Fiction Novel
Praise for The Imperial Hamer series:
I love sci-fi and this story makes me love it even more.
I am in awe of the writing ability and imagination of Cameron Cooper.
Before reading any of this author's work, I would have stated I did not really like science fiction. THAT has changed.
It's full of action from beginning to end.
Brilliant and intricate.
Many memorable characters – but my favorite is Varg.
Twists and turns so you’re never really sure what is going on behind the scenes.
1
Seventeen hours after the assassination of Ramaker III, 76th Carinad Emperor, 1st of the Tanique Dynasty
WHEN THE CONCIERGE PANEL TOLD me Dalton wanted to come in, I very nearly ignored the request. I was tired of arguing. Tired of explaining myself.
But it was Dalton. It didn’t matter that everyone else on the ship had probably asked him to speak to me on their behalf. Dalton deserved a hearing, even though I knew he would not say anything new and could not change my mind.
I told the concierge to open the door for him and got up and went out into the “garden” that my room was currently displaying.
Dalton stopped by the moon jasmine and crossed his arms, a tall, solid figure. The nonchalance was fake. He looked as pissed as me.
“You’re here to plead on their behalf,” I said.
“I felt it best to cooperate,” Dalton growled. “They’re upset.”
“Then you don’t agree with them?”
“I think they’re wrong about being able to change your mind. I do think handing yourself over to the array is fucking stupid, though.”
“I won’t be handing myself over to the array. I plan to talk to him, that’s all.”
“It’s the same thing and you know it. As soon as we drop the seal on the ship, he’ll have control of it and us. He can do what he wants with us.”
“I have to talk him down,” I said tiredly, for here we were, arguing the same things all over again. “We can’t stay sealed up inside the Lythion forever. Sooner or later we have to emerge. Outside the ship, the array has too many ways of reaching us. I have to talk to him, to draw the heat away from everyone.”
“By drawing a big target on yourself.”
“As far as the empire is concerned, I’ve already done that. They think I assassinated the emperor.” Before Dalton could point out the obvious, I added, “Yes, it was a clone and the array had already killed the real Ramaker, but everyone saw me kill him. That footage will flash across the empire while we’re stuck in this hole.” Ninety-six hours of twiddling our thumbs. Lyth had chosen the closest array gate from the Crystal City gate we’d dived into with the bulk of the Imperial Shield and Imperial Ranger fleet trying to catch us.
Because of the mechanics arising from folding space, the closest gate took the longest time to reach. Lyth had wisely figured we’d need time to plan our next move. But as far as I was concerned, planning time was over. “Who the hell knows what the array has done to everyone while we’re stuck in the hole,” I told Dalton. “If I’m not there for him to hit, he’ll take it out on the nearest people. I can’t let that happen.”
“It might already have happened,” Dalton pointed out.
“If he’s cut off the Crystal City, or someone else, then a few hours without communications isn’t the end of their world. I can still talk him around. I got him to lift the blockade on Keeler.”
“And if he’s annihilated worlds in the meantime?” Dalton asked curiously.
“He doesn’t have that ability,” I said quickly, shuddering at the prospect. We’d destroyed his factory of soldiers and weapons.
“That you know of,” Dalton added gently. He held up a hand. “I know you’ve made up your mind. I just want to be sure that you’re sure. You know what you’re risking, right?”
“All of you,” I said flatly. “I know.”
His jaw flexed. “Damn it, Danny, I’m talking about you.”
I gripped my hands together to stop myself from reaching for him. There was a reason we stood upon grass under the full daylights, instead of sitting upon the bed under the pergola with the smell of night wisteria perfuming the air. This was business.
I instead gave Dalton an uneasy smile. “I’m banking on me being the only person in the empire he wouldn’t kill outright just to make himself feel better.”
“It’s a very high risk to take,” Dalton said softly.
“Then it’s a very high risk I’ll be taking. We have to act fast, catch his intellect before his emotions stew and run away on him.”
Dalton held up his hand. “Yeah, yeah, I got this the first few times around.” He gave a great sigh and moved closer. His smile was crooked. “I could stay here while you do it. Just to…be here.”
My own smile wasn’t any firmer. “No one stands beside me while I talk to him. Especially not you.”
He touched his lips to mine. “We’ll monitor from the bridge.” His lips brushed my cheek.
“If the array lets you monitor.” Terror was building in my middle and I fought not to let any of it show on my face, or Dalton would refuse to leave. I really needed him to leave. I had to get this done. Dalton was the last roadblock. Once he was gone, nothing remained but to connect with the array and try to reason with it.
He made himself turn and go. I could see reluctance squaring every line in his body, but he left.
I considered asking the concierge to lock the door behind him, but once the array was invited into the ship, it could control everything, go anywhere it wanted, speak to anyone onboard…
I shut off the panic-inducing train of thought and pulled the garden chair out into the middle of the small patch of lawn. “Ready, Lyth,” I told the shipmind—at least, what used to be the shipmind, that no one else knew was actually a digital sentient and person in his own right, now.
“If you’re sure, captain?” Lyth replied, his voice issuing from the overheads.
“I’m less sure with every passing second, but it has to be done. I have to make the attempt.” To Lyth, I would explain myself, just as I would with Dalton, but for far different reasons. “Shields up—on everything. Then open the cage, please.”
A minute pause, which for Lyth would be eons. Was he debating with himself whether he would obey me or not? He had the ability to refuse, now. Then, “Cage open, Captain.”
I took a deep breath and said to the air, “Noam? Are you there? Could I speak to you, please?”
I HAD STUPIDLY THOUGHT THE array would need to be coaxed into coming aboard via Lyth’s digital pathways. I had experience dealing with recalcitrant three-year-olds too smart for their own good and had based my presumption upon that experience.
The array roared into life barely before I had finished speaking. Had he even waited for the invitation? Or had he been invadin g the neural network even as I spoke?
His façade rose from the floor. No coy, human-like door opening in the wall for him today. He built himself out of construction nanobots with such speed and fury—pulling from whatever source of energy that was convenient—that the lights dimmed in the room. I saw the edges of the leaves on the oak tree shimmer as the energy holding the nanobots together faded for a heartbeat or two.
Then Noam, the array’s avatar, was standing over me, fury making his face work.
“Noam, I—”
His hand slammed against the side of my face, throwing me two meters across the grass. He gave a great roar, filled with formless anger, and stalked across the grass and kicked me onto my back. Then he straddled me, on his knees, his hands far too close to my head.
I saw the lack of humanity in his eyes. Or, I should say, the representation of his eyes. He hadn’t bothered with the finer details, like projecting warmth or humility. This was the array in as human a form as it could manage.
This form was enough to kill me. I could see the need to do that in its eyes. I had stolen his beautiful clone and destroyed his scheme. He had inhabited the clone body of the emperor and for a few hours had got away with it. What might he have done to the empire if I had not figured it out?
So I knew he could kill me now. He had ambition enough to drive an empire.
He reached for my neck. His hands were construction nanobots, built for strength. He could break my neck or strangle me if I let the fingers close around me.
I gripped the wrists to slow down his reach and suddenly, the words were there, prompted by the room-temperate feel of the “skin” beneath my fingers. “If you kill me,” I said quickly, “you’ll never find Laxman, ever again.”
The mad light in his eyes didn’t change. “I can do anything,” he growled.
“You can’t get on this ship unless we invite you,” I pointed out. “I’m the only person who knows where Laxman is.”
His fury checked. The tension in his wrists eased. He considered me. “He ran away from me.” His petulance was strong.
“You took away his work. His implants. He was afraid.”
The array dropped his hands. “They were my implants!”
He had used both implants which he had anonymously paid for Laxman to build. They were gone. The first he’d used to build himself a body using my son’s DNA. The second had been the Emperor’s DNA, to fool the Imperial family, the Shield and the Rangers…the whole empire, in fact. The array had been forced to destroy the clone of my son, to cover the fact that he had assassinated the Emperor using it, so the Ramaker clone could remain undetected.
Only one man in the empire could build the specialized bio-implants which let a digital personality inhabit the clone. That one man was the brilliant—and missing—Arnold Laxman.
Laxman was my leverage. I used it to the hilt. “Get off me, Noam.” I made myself use my son’s name, because it pleased the array when I did. “Let’s talk.”
He got up.
I rolled over and pushed myself up into a sitting position. My head throbbed and my hip, where he had kicked me, gave out a pang. I stayed on the grass. That would please him, too.
The array walked over to the garden chair. I had been planning on using the chair myself. I mentally shrugged as he sat in it and considered me. “Why should I do anything but kill you right now?” the array demanded. “I could, you know.”
I nodded. “I know.”
“You won’t just give me Laxman, though.”
“If I do, then you will kill me.”
He grinned. “Yes.”
I brushed off my hands. “Here’s the thing, Noam. If you hurt me, or anyone I care about, which includes everyone on this ship, or if you decide it might make you feel better to suck out the oxygen on a station somewhere, just to watch people hurt…if you do anything to punish anyone but me because your plans were upset, then you’ll never find Laxman again. Ever. I will make sure of it.”
“I can be everywhere at once,” he said, his tone confident. “I will find him.”
“Are you sure about that?” I said, my tone cool. “He hid from you for weeks. You can’t find him now.”
“I haven’t tried until now.”
He was lying.
“Don’t bother starting to look for him,” I told him. “There are places in the universe you can’t reach, Noam. Where you can’t see or hear. Laxman is in one of those places and won’t emerge until I tell him its safe.” Now I was the one who was lying. I had no more idea where Laxman was than the array did. But pretending I did was the only reason I was still breathing right now.
The array considered me steadily. The unblinking regard was quite inhuman. “If I can’t find Laxman and you won’t give him to me, then why should I agree to anything? Why shouldn’t I just kill you the way I want to?”
I had anticipated the question and had my answer ready. “I won’t give you Laxman, Noam. But I will give you me, in his stead.”
I caught the flash of interest in his eyes. It wasn’t prurient. He knew exactly what I was proposing, and he liked it.
“You can do anything you want to me, Noam, as long as you don’t do anything to anyone else. You just can’t kill me, or all knowledge of Laxman’s whereabouts will be gone.”
I made myself shut up, then, and waited for his agreement. I knew he would agree. It would be irresistible to him to have complete control over me. He would delight in making me as miserable as possible.
The array rubbed his chin, trying hard to look reluctant but he hadn’t had enough practice at dissembling while wearing a human façade. “I know where the ship is heading,” he told me. “When it arrives, you will hand yourself over to the Shield unit that will be waiting for you. Agreed?”
“And the ship and everyone on it is free to leave again, yes?”
He hesitated.
Too long! my mind screamed at me. He could process in less than a second what took hours for humans. And he wasn’t bothering to fake human details right now, either.
He was going to try and double-cross me.
“Yes?” I repeated, nudging him.
“Yes, they’re free to leave again,” Noam said. He held out his hand, in the ancient form of agreement. I shifted across the lawn and took it, even though my skin crawled at the contact.
Noam leaned forward, as his fingers gripped mine. This time, he punched me in the belly. I’d been braced for it and rode it out but made a great show of coughing and collapsing on the lawn.
Noam bent over me. “I am going to enjoy this, Danny Andela.”
Then he disappeared.
Badelt City, 79 hours later.
AS SOON AS THE SHIP HAD settled and exhaust ports and externals were coupled up with the station umbilicals, the man-sized docking bay door opened and black uniforms streamed in.
“They couldn’t wait two fucking seconds?” Juliyana cried, peering down at the docking bay from the observation windows on the bridge. Her eyes were red from crying, but she had been one of the first to quit protesting.
Even Varg had protested in her own way. She didn’t understand the human concepts that were making everyone unhappy, but I couldn’t hide my fear from her because of our empathetic link. She kept herself in contact with my leg as much as possible. She was there right now. I pushed my fingers into her ruff. “You should all stay here on the bridge,” I told everyone. “Just in case.”
“Fuck that,” Sauli said. “I want to look ‘em in the eye when they take you away.”
Dalton was peering down at the bay floor. “I know that prick,” he muttered and looked at me. “That’s Krall.”
My heart sank. “Maalick Krall?” I moved over to the window and checked for myself. The rangy Major standing out in front of the twelve-strong unit was familiar.
“He’s a sick, sadistic bastard,” Dalton said.
“And just the sort to work for two pay masters,” I added in agreement. I looked around the bridge at their unhappy expressions. “I knew this wouldn’t be a vacation. I’ll handle it.” I stirred. “They won’t wait for long. Better unseal, Lyth.”
