Chapter 1

The head of the Imperial Defense Ministry’s own security service, General Las, had been sitting pensively in a chair in front of his personal holographic monitor for several minutes. His gaze was directed elsewhere, and the General seemed completely uninterested in the lines of updated information running across the screen.

The work, which he had begun at Marshal Klink’s suggestion, has in fact been finished. Except that Klink was no longer the acting supreme commander of the armed forces of the Empire. The investigation, initiated by his enemies in the Regency Council amidst the defeatist hysteria fanned by the online media, led first to the restriction of Marshal’s authority, and soon to his removal from office for his inability to effectively resist an enemy offensive that turned out to be not so large-scale. The whole thing – both the investigation and its results – was obviously bogus, but, as you know, one can find a key to almost every politician or official by doing a little digging into his past, so many members of the Regency Council somehow suddenly lost their critical thinking, and the decision to suspend Klink passed with unexpected ease, as did the order for his arrest, so far, however, only at home.

And now Las was faced with the question of what to do with the information obtained by his service.

Admiral Dier became the new acting supreme commander, and it was as a result of his conflict with Dier that Marshal Klink involved Las in an investigation into the origins of the wave of disinformation about the almost inevitable toads’ breakthrough that had engulfed the Empire. Now Las knew exactly who had set off the wave, and he was about to put together all the causes and effects, leading to an understanding of the plan, of which the media hysteria was a visible part. Except that Fleet Admiral Dier was now none other than his direct superior, and it was to him he was supposed to go with the report of the investigation. But Las was well aware of what would follow such a report. All the facts obtained by Las’s men indicated that Dier was a direct and very active participant in the cabal.

Las was not just an experienced and diligent officer or a reckless patriot who saw his only goal in the prosperity of the Empire, but, to his credit, he wasn’t a cynical beast either, ready to throw away all his principles and beliefs to save his career and his own skin. All his life, the General has found compromises that allowed him to simultaneously achieve his career goals and not feel like the last scoundrel, he managed to stay on a certain line and still think of himself as a decent person. But now there was no compromise, and the choice was really tough.

The investigation could have been quietly shut down, and it would not have threatened him and his family in any way, since there would definitely be a place for them in the new world. But then how to live with the knowledge that you could have prevented the deaths of billions of people and did not do it…

There was another option, much more risky and by no means guaranteeing a positive result. Las could finish the investigation at his own risk and bring the results to the people who still retained power in the Empire and who were able, and most importantly, had the will to change the current situation. It is true that these people were, if not explicit, then hidden opponents of the clan to which his current chief belonged, and from the departmental point of view, such actions, to put it mildly, went beyond the limits of what was allowed, and to call it what it was, it was bordering on treason. So such a move could have corresponding consequences for Las.

The General realized that he had managed to get between a rock and a hard place, with no chance of leaving that danger zone without doing something for which he would later despise himself.

Having finally broken away from the contemplation of some abstract point in space, Las reluctantly focused his gaze on the monitor screen. The General felt unable to make any decision. If one option is blatantly unacceptable and the other one is extremely dangerous, then one should seriously consider making no choice at all, and Las determined for himself that he would continue the investigation, keeping it as secret as possible and minimizing the number of agents working on it, and then, when the situation became clearer, he would decide what to do with the results of the investigation.

Having made this halfway decision, the General calmed down a little and looked more closely at the lines on the monitor.

So, what is known at this point? First, what is already found out with a high degree of certainty. The wave of panic was initiated by the network media, controlled by citizen Shun, a person, fairly well-known in narrow circles – the owner of a large network media holding company, that controls a large chunk of the information market in the Empire. Shun is a major figure, but still not one of the first row of imperial oligarchs, which means it is unlikely that he could act solely on his own initiative. Consequently, either he entered into an alliance with someone, or he was simply forced to start spreading panic among the population.

Even before Marshal Klink was removed from his post and placed under house arrest, it was clear that the Empire’s fleet was in fact only simulating a frantic effort to mobilize all its reserves to repel a hypothetical toads’ attack. At that moment it became clear to Las that Admiral Dier’s actions were well coordinated with the information campaign organized by Shun, and with the Klink’s summons to the Regency Council, which began the procedure for his removal from the leadership of the Empire’s armed forces.

The figure of Marshal Klink as a pale shadow of the Emperor more or less suited everyone until the unexpected appearance on scene of Brigadier General Dean, who had been lost to total obscurity for six whole years and had already been written off by all the opposing forces in the Empire. But Dean returned, and contact with the Earth Federation made significant adjustments to the balance of power. This forced the elite groups most affected by the change of balance of forces to move into action. All that remains is to understand what exactly their goals are.

Las’s agents managed to unearth quite a few interesting facts, and the most important of them was probably the Admiralty’s order to recall the Imperial squadron from the Earth Federation space under the very artificial pretext of mobilizing all forces to repel the toads’ general offensive. This order was not the only one. Within just a couple of months of this order, the Empire stopped virtually all shipments of military equipment and ships decommissioned due to combat damage to the Federation, previously conducted on a large scale on the initiative of General Clay.

With Clay himself, by the way, there was also some murky story, whether related to an unexecuted Admiralty order or to a badly executed one. As a result, Clay was now sitting in the detention center of the Imperial Security Directorate, and Las had no way to get him out of there, despite his high position and rank as a General. The rival agency would only have grimaced at any inquiry on this subject coming from the Ministry of Defense security services, in addition, it would not fail to hint to Admiral Dier that his subordinates go beyond the established unspoken norms in the relations of the Imperial secret services.

As far as Las knew, the Empire’s new allies were just now having some very serious problems of a purely military nature. Their adversaries were strong enough, as was clear from the fact that Clay’s squadron, which returned from the Federation space, had lost a battleship in combat. In such circumstances, the departure of the Imperial ships looked like an outright betrayal and could only be justified by a real military disaster taking place in the Empire. But there was no catastrophe, and instead there was only loud verbiage on the subject, and Las was faced with the question of why did the forces that had deposed Marshal Klink, imprisoned battle general Clay, and caused panic in the Empire need military defeat or even the death of the Earth Federation?

Las had a neutral attitude toward the new allies. In the General’s opinion, a contact between the Federation and the Empire was beneficial to both sides, and he did not yet understand why any of the Imperial leaders would want to completely mess up relations with an albeit weaker, but very useful human civilization from another galaxy. Nevertheless, Las had no doubt that breaking off relations with the Earth Federation could only do the Empire harm, and very significant harm. The General was also sure that the key to understanding the motives of those who started all this is hidden exactly in the relationship between the Empire and the Federation.A direct conversation with former Brigadier General Dean, now Admiral Lavroff, could probably clarify a lot, but now the Imperial Security Service had all the access codes to the portal linking the galaxies, and only they could contact the Federation. The other two people directly involved in Dean’s operation, namely General Clay and Dr. Silk, could have known these codes, as well as the hyperspace coordinates of the gates located in the Earth Federation space, and almost certainly they did know them. But Las couldn’t gain access to Clay, and as for Silk, the Doctor had vanished without a trace, and there has been no news about him for almost a month.

When the General was told about this, at first he did not even believe it. In the Empire, it is not easy for a citizen to escape the control of the state, especially when he is not a specially trained agent, but an ordinary scientist. But the fact remained that Dr. Silk had disappeared. His personal communicator was not responding to calls or being tracked by police and army scanners, and his bank accounts had not been used since his disappearance. It is true that Las’s analysts discovered several large purchases while checking the doctor’s accounts, which led them to certain thoughts. Silk clearly knew he would be looked for. Perhaps Clay somehow managed to warn him of his arrest and told him what to do, or maybe they had everything prepared in advance, just in case, and as soon as Clay didn’t contact him at the appointed time, Silk knew it was time to act. This option seemed even more likely to Las.

In principle, the General knew where to look for the Doctor. Silk must have escaped to a frontline area. Many star systems changed hands several times, and control over civilian movements in them was severely weakened. If the Doctor used someone else’s identification card and special means to falsify biometric data, then the easiest place for him to hide was where the population control system was temporarily disorganized. Las also knew something else – surely his opponents in the Imperial security service had come to the same conclusions and now they were working hard to be the first to find the escaped Doctor. So if Las wants answers to his questions, he should move his limbs very briskly.

* * *

Nelson summoned me to his office the day after my visit to the Tobolsky’s residence. I don’t know what the President said to him after our conversation, but the Minister of Defense looked somewhat puzzled. In addition to the Admiral there was General Knyazev in the office, this did not surprise me at all. These two officers once fought over a girl they both liked while on leave, back in their cadet days, and they’ve hardly parted ways since, despite serving in different branches of the military. Nelson lost his fight that time, but in the end that girl became his wife, and Knyazev… In general, the future chief of staff was not too upset by this fact, because very pretty candidates for girlfriends regularly appeared in sight of the brave commando cadet.