“We’ve received a new transmission, Lord Captain,” the lieutenant said, advancing the rest of the way into the room. Two chairs stood in front of the desk, but she remained on her feet.
Lord Captain Martin Redgrave was a man in his early fifties with gray hair and deep wrinkles around his eyes. Like the lieutenant, he wore a steel-blue uniform with gold piping and a tall collar. Of noble blood, the captain also wore a cape that draped over the back of his chair.
“Give it here,” Redgrave said, his hand outstretched.
Kinnari gave him the datapad and stood at attention while waiting for him to finish reading the communication. His face turned sour.
“Well, shit,” he said. “The military governor on Marakata is dead.”
“Colonel Grausman, sir?”
“Assassinated in his own office,” the captain continued.
“Were the two of you close?” Kinnari said.
The captain looked up from the datapad. “Hell no! The man was a monster, but at least he kept the Draconians in check...”
“May I speak freely, sir?” Kinnari asked.
“If you must.”
“It seems the situation on Marakata is intractable,” she went on stiffly. “Short of autonomy or annihilation, there’s no tenable solution to the continued occupation.”
“You think we don’t know that?” the captain replied. “It’s a damn distraction if you ask me, lieutenant. We’ve got better things to worry about.”
Kinnari nodded curtly. “To that end, sir, we’ve also received a report of a Parvulian merchant ship being attacked.”
“Again?”
“As before, the crew was taken while the cargo was left intact.”
“Well, it’s definitely not the Pirate Clans then,” the captain said. “They’ve never met a cargo container they didn’t like. I’m tempted to think it’s Celadon Corsairs... those little green pricks would love to muscle into Clan territory and they’re known for taking captives.”
“But the cargo wasn’t touched...”
“I heard you, lieutenant,” the captain grumbled. “It’s a mystery.”
Fortunas IV, a backwater world on the outskirts of the Imperium, had no real water to speak of, but the planet’s position along the trade routes made it a useful refueling stop. Over the centuries, a small marketplace grew into a sprawling bazaar containing hundreds of covered stalls where vendors, most of them not human, sold their wares to travelers passing through.
Rowan Ramus walked between the shops, his boots stomping over the hard-packed soil. Captain of the freighter the Wanderer, Ramus was a Dahl but, with bright red hair and silver rings piercing his ears, he bore little resemblance to his brethren. Wearing a sleeveless red shirt, exposing archaic lettering tattooed on his arms, Ramus doubted his parents would have approved. On the other hand, they wouldn’t remember him anymore anyway...
A few steps behind Ramus, a silver and blue robot followed her master. A general-purpose android, she went by Gen for short. About the same height as the Dahl, Gen had the curves typical of a petite woman and large, expressive eyes.
“You still back there?” Ramus asked without turning.
“Yes, sir!” Gen replied enthusiastically.
Gen carried a bag stuffed with supplies, slung over her shoulder. Even if she wasn’t a heavy-duty workbot, she could still manage pretty well on her own, Ramus thought. His ship’s engineer, Orkney Fugg, would have preferred a more rugged robot for the Wanderer, although if he really got his way, the engine room would have been filled with sexbots and fungus beer.
“Are we headed back to the ship?” she asked.
“No,” Ramus replied. “We’re seeing a client somewhere in town. Fugg’s supposed to meet us there.”
“Oh, that’ll be nice,” Gen said.
“Well, Fugg’s picking the place, so I’m sure it’ll be a dump...”
“As in garbage?”
“No,” Ramus said, “as in strippers...”
Life on the streets of Fortunas IV was neither glamorous nor long for many of the children who grew up there. For Storma Bane, nothing was easy since as far back as he could remember. Like all other humans, he could trace his ancestry to the first colonists who arrived in Andromeda seven centuries earlier. Since his forefathers weren’t part of the crew, they didn’t become part of the aristocratic class that developed over the years. Storma’s family tree started with low-level technicians and mechanics that might have made something of themselves but, for whatever reason, never did. His parents ended up on the far side of the Imperium with no money and no prospects. Storma was born, discarded, and grew up on his own in the alleys and slum housing of this arid world. By age fourteen, he joined a gang and was running errands for the local mob. By eighteen, he had a gang of his own, mugging drunk tourists.
Tonight, Storma and his crew waited in a darkened alley for someone to wander by. Like coyotes in the desert, their keen eyes were always on the watch for an easy mark. Now in his early twenties, Storma crouched beside a garbage bin, smoking a cigarette.
The sound of footsteps approached on the sidewalk outside the alley. From the metallic cadence along the cement, Storma knew one of them was a robot.
This is a good score, he thought. Robots are expensive.
A man and a general-purpose android passed by the alley entrance. Storma recognized the man as Dahl by his short stature and pointed ears. He had some strange tattoos, but that detail faded as Storma grabbed his men and stepped out into the lamplight.
“Nice robot,” Storma said, pulling a knife from his belt.
The android, blue and silver, stopped and turned.
“Why, thank you!” she said, “I was recently refurbished.”
Storma glared at the Dahl.
“Hand over the bot or I’ll slit your throat,” Storma said.
Half expecting the Dahl to run away, Storma was surprised when he stood his ground, even taking a step closer. The tattoos on his arms were glowing with an odd, radiant blue, turning a little brighter each second. His eyes were blazing like fire.
“What the hell is this?” Storma muttered.
The Dahl was transforming, his hands and fingers growing longer. His fingernails curled into wolf-like claws and his mouth transformed into jaws full of fangs. Storma couldn’t look away.
“You should be running, too!” the creature growled.
Storma peered over his shoulder in time to see his other two gang members disappear down the alley.
Storma swung his knife but missed badly, his arm going wide. With its claws, the creature slashed through Storma’s forearm. Both the knife and the hand holding it landed with a fleshy thud on the ground. Storma looked at the stump, spewing blood, like it was someone else’s.
The nightmarish monster prepared for another attack.
“No!” Storma screamed, but the paw swung around, slicing through his neck. His head rolled away into the gutter as Storma’s body fell headless to the pavement.
The Pink Persian was a gentleman’s club in only the loosest of terms. Located near the Fortunas starport, its interior was almost universally pink except in places were purple seemed more tasteful. Upon entering, patrons found the bar on their left and booths on the right, with regular tables cluttering the middle. At the end of the bar, a stage was set up along with a metal pole. A female Tikarin, a cat-like humanoid, danced on stage, wrapping her body around the post to the beat of the music. While technically naked, the dancer was covered in tan fur like a lioness.
In an adjacent booth, with a good view of the show, Orkney Fugg watched disapprovingly.
“You call that dancing?” he shouted. “My nana could work the brass better than you!”
The Tikarin paused momentarily to show Fugg her middle claw before going back to her routine.
“Rude!” Fugg replied.
The chief engineer for the Wanderer, Fugg was Gordian, a species of stocky, ill-tempered people with the face of a boar, including a pig nose and tusk
s. On his home planet, he would be drinking fungus beer brewed lovingly in the belly of the mountains. On Fortunas IV, he had to settle for the swill wine they sold domestically. Empty bottles of it littered Fugg’s table.
Through the gauzy haze of his stupor and a generally bad mood, Fugg recognized a familiar face. His captain, Rowan Ramus, and their robot were wading through the tables and chairs in his direction.
“You were supposed to be waiting for the client,” Ramus said, sliding into the booth.
“You didn’t say I couldn’t drink while I waited,” Fugg replied.
Gen the robot remained standing beside the table. Her eyes were full of fear, as if she had seen a ghost.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Fugg asked.
Her eyes brightened and her lips contorted into a pained smile.
“Nothing,” she said. “Nothing horrible just happened.”
“Never mind that,” Ramus said, motioning toward the entrance. “Our client just got here...”
A robot waited just inside the front door, its casing painted in a dull orange with areas worn down so the aluminum underneath showed through. Seeing the others in the booth, it walked toward them with a mechanical gait.
For Fugg, this was too much.
“We’re taking jobs from robots now?” he protested.
“Ignore him,” Ramus said, addressing the machine. “I’m Captain Ramus of the Wanderer.”
“I’m Bos Kacil,” the client said. “We spoke on the comm earlier.”
“Good to meet you,” the captain replied. “This is my engineer, Orkney Fugg.”
“Actually, Mister Fugg,” Kacil said, “I’m Parvulian, not a robot. We merely use these mechanized walkers as locomotion.”
With a hiss, the chest of the machine cracked and swung open, revealing a cockpit inside. A humanoid, only twenty inches tall with pink skin and large, bulbous eyes, stared out at them.
“Crap on a cracker!” Fugg said.
“As you can see,” Kacil continued, his voice higher in pitch than the lower, synthesized speech of the robot, “I ride inside this machine, called a mech. Shall we get to business?”
“Right,” Ramus agreed.
“I represent the Parvulian Trade Consortium,” Kacil said. “Several of our freighters have come under attack recently and our crews have been either killed or captured.”
“Are these strictly Parvulian crews?” Ramus asked.
“Only the captains. The rest are humans, Tikarin, and even a few Gordians like your friend here.”
Ramus gave his engineer a sideways glance. “Oh, we’re not exactly friends...”
“Another of our ships, the Konpira Maru, has failed to check in,” Kacil went on. “We want you to investigate what happened to it.”
“My rate’s ten thousand per day,” Ramus said, “plus another five if we get shot at, not including the robot.”
“That’s acceptable,” Kacil replied. “I’ll transmit the last known coordinates of the freighter.”
Gen, who had remained silent the whole time, perked up.
“Wait, what about the robot?” she asked.
The next morning, the Wanderer jumped to hyperspace en route to the coordinates Bos Kacil had given. On the second day of the journey, Gen was in the engine room, assisting Fugg with routine maintenance. From the robot’s experience, routine usually meant swearing at the ship’s machinery.
After Fugg had kicked a power coupling and started hopping around on one foot, Gen decided to ask a question that had been bothering her.
“Master Fugg,” she said, “What kind of Dahl is Captain Ramus?”
“What?” the engineer scowled, holding his ankle while balancing precariously on the other foot.
“I’ve met several Dahl, but he’s not like the rest of his people, is he?”
Fugg snorted loudly, falling over.
“People?” he said, now sitting. “Ramus ain’t got people no more.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He’s what they call one of the Forgotten.”
“What’s that?”
“The Dahl have long memories, but when Ramus turned his back on them, they deleted him from their minds. He’s not just an exile, Gen, he got erased!”
Gen stared at Fugg as if she had more to say.
“What?” Fugg shouted impatiently.
“It’s just...” she sputtered, “we were walking in town the other night and a gentleman wanted a word with us. He was very complimentary, but then there seemed to be a misunderstanding and Master Ramus changed. He turned into an animal and killed the man right in front me! It was terrifying!”
“Oh, that’s just Dark Psi,” Fugg said.
“Dahlvish psionics?”
“Well, not the kind regular Dahl ever learn. Dark Psi is outlawed.”
“Is that why they exiled Master Ramus?”
“Naw,” Fugg waved his hands. “He learned that after. He fell in with a group called the Psi Lords. They taught him all kinds of crazy shit. Anyway, he doesn’t use it much. He’s kind of weird about the whole thing.”
Gen was silent again. Fugg sighed.
“Yes?” he asked.
“Is Master Ramus a bad person?”
Fugg snorted. “We’re all bad people, Gen.”
“I always thought I was good.”
“That’s because you’re a stupid robot! Deep down we’re all terrible in our own special way. It’s part of nature. We act good most of the time, but when push comes to shove, we’ll do whatever terrible thing needs doin’.”
“Oh...”
“Listen, don’t worry about it. It’s all good.”
“But you just said...”
“Good. Bad. They’re all just words, see? They can mean whatever you want.”
“I think I have a lot to learn,” Gen said.
“Just stick with me, kid,” Fugg thumped his chest. “I’ll teach you all the ins and outs.”
Gen smiled. “Thank you!”
Captain Redgrave and Commander Robert Maycare drank coffee in the captain’s office. Each held a porcelain mug emblazoned with the Imperial emblem: a five-pointed star enclosed by a laurel wreath.
The commander took a sip, remembering the skipper’s steward never used enough sugar.
Compared to his captain, Maycare was a decade younger with dark hair cut short along the sides and slightly longer on top. While both officers were of noble blood, though not of the Five Families, Maycare was also the nephew of his famous uncle Lord Devlin Maycare, renowned throughout the Imperium for his daring feats of sportsmanship and womanizing. Nevertheless, whenever the commander brought up one of his uncle’s infamous adventures, Redgrave made a point of telling one of his own.
“We got some good news about my Uncle Devlin,” Maycare began, “apparently the paternity test was negative—”
“Did I ever tell you about the time I faced a dozen Talion torpedo boats?” Redgrave asked, interrupting his XO.
Maycare sighed. “Probably...”
“It was just after the third Imperium-Magna war,” the captain went on. “I was part of the reprisal fleet, punishing the Talion Republic for siding with the Magna. Anyway, my destroyer got separated from the task force and a squadron of torpedo boats came out of an asteroid belt where they were hiding.”
The XO stared into his mug.
“The Tals depend on boats because they can’t afford capital ships like us and the Magna. Anyway, they launched a spread of torpedoes, but they didn’t count on my ship’s maneuverability or how well my ECCM suite could handle their targeting sensors.”
“Right.”
“Needless to say, I outflanked the boats and finished them off in short order.”
“I love that story,” Maycare said. “So, my uncle’s test—”
The young voice of the chief communications officer crackled over the intercom. “Lord Captain, a courier ship has transmitted an encrypted message for you. It’s from Lord Admiral Highcastle.”<
br />
The captain pressed a button on the comm. “Patch it through, Ensign.”
“Aye, Lord Captain.”
A monitor recessed into the surface of his desk sprang to life and the face of a man, his face creased with age, appeared. His curly white hair contrasted against his dark, weathered skin.
“Should I leave?” the XO asked.
“No, stay,” the captain said. “Computer, decrypt and play message.”
“Captain Redgrave,” the admiral began, “as you may already know, another Parvulian freighter has suffered an attack. While this is distressing, it has also come to our attention that the Parvulians have hired an independent party to investigate.
“Now, I know you and your crew have been diligent in this matter,” the admiral went on, “and I have every confidence that you will find the culprits involved. However, we can’t have these xenos acting on their own without the Imperial Navy’s involvement. Pretty soon they’ll start asking why they need us at all. With that in mind, I’m ordering the Baron Lancaster to the freighter’s last known coordinates. It’s imperative that you find out what’s going on, and if you can dissuade this independent party, all the better! Lord Admiral Hightower out!”
The image blinked off.
Commander Maycare got up and headed toward the door leading to the bridge. “I’ll have Ensign Clark plot a course, sir.”
“Maximum speed,” Redgrave grumbled.
Chapter Seven
On the planet Isylium, in the Talion Republic, Kovel Kerch led his guest to a local farm from where they had parked their gravcar. A Tal, Kerch was dressed in a long tunic and pants, both maroon with an intricate design woven into the fabric. A cape of the same material hung across his back while a round, silver amulet dangled from his neck. Inquisitor Kerch had been sent by the Republic to learn as much as he could about the recent K’thonian attacks on the planet. Today, however, he felt more like a tour guide for his taller, and much greener, companion, a Magna named Judicator Busa-Gul.
Ostensibly allies, the Talion Republic and the Magna Supremacy were hardly equal. The Magna were more powerful and treated the Tals, at least in Kerch’s mind, more like a vassal.
Feeling the brunt of the sun on his orange scales, Kerch directed his visitor toward a farmhouse partially hidden by a field of crops.
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