Imperium: Contact

Prologue

Captain Archabold sat in his office, watching the view screen on his desk. He stared at the inky blackness of space and sighed. Two weeks of this and they still had nothing to show for it. His ship, the frigate Dominance, had been deployed to this remote region of space to search for an anomalous sensor contact reported by an automated Imperial intelligence outpost.

Archabold ran both hands through his short blonde hair and sent dark thoughts towards whatever data-pusher at Imperial Intelligence had sent them on this wild goose chase. He looked back at the view screen, at the system's sun glowing brightly in the distance. A simple main sequence star, with two rocky planets in close orbit. Further out, three large gas giants made up the rest of the system's planets. There was also a large asteroid belt between the second and third planets in the system.

The report he'd received from the outpost had indicated the signal was moving, in other words, it had come from a ship. So how did anyone expect a single frigate to find a moving target in all this empty space? They could spend years searching and never find it. That was assuming the damn thing was still in this system, for all he knew it could be half way across the galaxy by now. This, 'anomalous', sensor contact was probably just some scrapheap a shengyet pirate gang had managed to cobble together. Chasing it down would be an utter waste of time and resources.

The com panel beeped, it was Commander Jenkins, his second in command.

"Captain, report coming in from recon drones, no contact."

"Very well," Archabold replied wearily.

"Deploy them to the next sector."

"Aye sir," Jenkins replied.

He hesitated, then said.

"Permission to speak freely Captain."

"Go ahead," Archabold told him.

"Sir, is Imperial Intelligence aware of how futile this mission is? I mean we can only scan a small area at a time. If what we're after is a ship, it can simply move into an area we've already scanned."

"I understand your misgivings Commander," Archabold assured him.

"But we have our orders, continue with the scanning, I'll be joining you on the bridge shortly."

"Aye sir."

The Captain got up from his chair and walked towards the armored pressure door at the far end of his office. He stepped out into the hallway beyond. Crew hastily saluted as they hurried past him. He casually returned their salutes as he made his way to the elevator that would take him to the command deck. Jenkins was right of course, but as the Captain he had to keep up appearances for the sake of his crew. They were already bored and frustrated enough. The last thing they needed, was for their Captain to start showing that same frustration.

The elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open. Archabold stepped into the hallway running down the length of the command deck. He turned to his left and walked towards the massive bridge door. The door slid open at his approach and he stepped onto the Dominance's circular bridge. At the side opposite the door, the main view screen curved and wrapped two thirds of the way around the entire bridge. In the center, it showed a tactical view of the system. Tiny blue dots, each one representing a recon drone, moved across the display. On the left side of

the screen, data from the drone's and the ship's sensors appeared. The right side displayed the status readouts of the ship's systems.

Archabold examined the status of his ship. All systems were functioning at one hundred percent efficiency. They were running low on fuel though, he made a mental note to order a flyby of one of the gas giants to replenish their hydrogen reserves. As the Captain examined the status of the ship's systems, he was reminded of just how amazing a piece of technology she was.