The Imperium Chronicles Collection, 2nd Edition - Stories

by W. H. Mitchell

  “On a world covered in jungle. That shouldn’t be hard...”

  “Some of your old contacts are still alive. I’ve made sure of that.”

  “What about payment?”

  “Five hundred thousand credits,” the colonel replied.

  Magnus shook his head slowly. “Not enough.”

  “Like I said, I can get the IS to stop looking for you.”

  “Now, how would you do that?”

  “I’ve made new friends,” the colonel said. “They might do me a favor if I ask nicely.”

  “The IS was pretty pissed when I quit,” Magnus replied. “It didn’t help that I killed their agent on my way out the door...”

  “Is that a yes?”

  Magnus considered for a long minute but finally nodded. “Okay.”

  When the expansion of the Imperium reached the Draconian home world Marakata, the humans found a race of fierce warriors who, even without advanced technology, resisted all attempts to subdue them. Taller than humans, these large reptiles are covered in thick green scales with wide, bone-like protrusions around the crown of their skulls. Although they have claws on both hands and feet, they are masters of bladed weapons including what the natives call the Draconian battlestaff. At the end of a long pole, the head of the battlestaff combines a pointed side for stabbing and an axe side for slashing.

  The Draconians did a lot of both as often as they could.

  Two hundred years and several revolts later, Marakata was a police state with Colonel Hugo Grausman as the military governor. Even with Imperial soldiers manning checkpoints throughout the main city of Sucikhata, attacks by Draconian separatists occurred so frequently that most governing offices, both civil and military, were located in an area of relative safety called the Green Zone.

  Although the inhabitants of the city enjoyed all the modern amenities one would expect, the architecture of Sucikhata gave it a more ancient appearance. Instead of concrete and plasteel, the buildings were constructed of stone blocks carefully fitted together without mortar or cement. Since most buildings were only a few stories tall, the city grew outward, forming a sprawling labyrinth of narrow alleys paved with large, flattened stones. Like everywhere else on the planet, vines and vegetation are prevalent throughout the city as the jungle attempts to take back what was rightfully its own.

  Magnus checked into a hotel where he found his equipment waiting for him courtesy of Colonel Grausman. Magnus lifted the blinds and stared out at the jungle visible just outside the city. In the haze of the afternoon, a volcano rose from the leafy sea of green.

  As a new recruit, barely in his twenties, Magnus learned all about Agniparvata, the name of the Draconians’ revered mountain. According to their legends, a two-headed dragon named Bonamalum lived inside the volcano. One of the heads, Bona, was good-natured while his brother, Malum, was evil. One day, a hero climbed the mountain and challenged Malum to combat. The evil side agreed, attacking the hero, but after a battle lasting seven days and seven nights, Malum’s head lay severed on the ground. As the hero rejoiced in his victory, he noticed that Bona, the good side, was bleeding to death from the wound that killed his evil brother. Powerless to help, the hero could do nothing as the good dragon collapsed and died.

  Over the better part of two decades, most of the soldiers Magnus served with were either dead or transferred off-world. He hadn’t made many friends among the locals, because he was killing them most of the time. The few native contacts Magnus did make were usually uncovered by resistance groups and executed as traitors. Even so, there was one Draconian he was confident still lived. A quick search of the business registry confirmed it.

  Despite the tropical heat, Magnus pulled on his leather overcoat and made his way down the streets of Sucikhata. Military checkpoints blocked most major arteries, but Magnus avoided them, preferring the narrow side streets. A group of Draconian children playing with a ball stopped, their jaws hanging open, as the strange human passed by. Most non-Dracs were too afraid of the dangers that dwelt in the alleyways. Besides regular gangs, thieves, and misfits, these were the passageways where true believers in Draconian freedom were found. For them, spilling human blood was a rite of passage.

  As if oblivious, Magnus strolled undeterred except for the heavy sweat running down his face and neck.

  Turning a corner, three young Draconians barred his way. Each carried a machete-sized blade.

  “Lost?” one of them asked.

  Magnus cocked his head to one side.

  “You must have a death wish,” another one said.

  Magnus opened his coat, revealing a blaster rifle hanging from a shoulder harness.

  “Go home,” he said.

  “We’re not afraid of you!” the first youth replied defiantly.

  “If you knew how many Dracs said that to me and ended up dead,” the assassin replied, “you’d already be gone.”

  The Draconians traded nervous glances, but Magnus already knew what the consensus would be. Courage was no substitute for experience, and fear trumped them both.

  Reluctantly, but still with an element of haste, the three stepped back and turned, making their way down a side alley and out of sight. Magnus closed his coat and continued on his way.

  The Dragon’s Teeth was a shop far enough off the beaten path that only people who already knew it existed ever went there. The shop’s name, by law, was written in the human language, called Imperial Standard, while below in smaller script was the translation in Draconian cuneiform.

  Magnus pushed the front door open and went in. If the hit man thought the air was hot on the outside, he was unpleasantly surprised to find it like a furnace on the inside.

  At least it was a dry heat, he thought. Like sticking your head in a convection oven.

  A bell over the door alerted the owner someone had entered. A tattered curtain covering an archway parted and a Draconian, hobbling on a peg leg, shuffled in. Seeing Magnus, the old Draconian swore something in the local language. Magnus could guess what it meant.

  “Hello, Daaruk,” Magnus said. “How’s business?”

  Daaruk swung his head toward the racks of swords hanging on the walls, a blanket of dust covering them.

  “About as well as my leg,” he replied wryly. “The one you shot off as I recall.”

  “That’s a shame,” Magnus replied. “You’re the best weaponsmith on Marakata.”

  Daaruk chuckled. “Only because your people keep killing my competition.”

  Magnus shrugged.

  “I guess it’s good to be the last one standing,” he remarked.

  The Draconian pivoted on his wooden leg and went back through the archway. Magnus followed.

  In the next room, a forge filled the center, a well-worn anvil standing to one side. Daaruk took a pair of tongs and grabbed a piece of glowing-red metal from the burning forge. With a hammer as big as Magnus’ fist, the Draconian struck the metal over the anvil a few times before shoving it back into the fire.

  “So, you took my leg,” Daaruk said. “Did you come back to finish the job?”

  “No,” Magnus replied. “I have a different job in mind.”

  “What’s it got to do with me?”

  “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Unless he’s a customer, I don’t know him.”

  “The Jade General?” Magnus asked.

  Daaruk pulled the rod from the forge again, but instead of laying it across the anvil, he swung it around toward Magnus’ head. Anticipating the move, Magnus thrust his hand through the pocket of his coat, firing his blaster rifle through the lining. Daaruk’s peg leg disintegrated into ashes, leaving him off-balance. He fell heavily on his chest, the smoldering metal bar sliding away across the floor.

  Magnus removed the rifle from his coat and pointed it at the back of Daaruk’s head as he lay there gasping for breath.

  “Was it something I said?” the assassin asked.

  The weaponsmith rolled over, rubbing his shoulder he had hit ag
ainst the floor.

  “Barbarian,” he said.

  “That’s funny,” Magnus replied. “That’s what Colonel Grausman calls you.”

  “Humans think we’re primitive because we don’t use blasters,” Daaruk said, “but we think humans are barbarians because you have no honor.”

  “Honor never stopped a person from dying,” Magnus said.

  “Will you help me up?”

  “No, I like where you are just fine.”

  “Are you really looking for Ekavir, the Jade General?”

  “I am.”

  “He is also without honor,” Daaruk said.

  “That’s what I hear,” Magnus replied. “Why is that, by the way?”

  “Do you know the story of the Dragon’s Tears?”

  “It’s about the dragon, Bonamalum,” Magnus said, “or at least Bona, the good one. When his evil brother Malu was killed, Bona wept and where his tears fell, Draconian warriors sprang to life.”

  Daaruk nodded. “They’re called Dragon Soldiers. They pledged to always serve their people, no matter the enemy.”

  “What’s that got to do with Ekavir?” Magnus asked.

  “He forgot about the pledge. He only cares about revenge against the human invaders, even when it means Draconians die in the process.”

  “So you abandoned him?”

  “No, no. He abandoned us for his own selfish ambitions.”

  “Alright,” Magnus said. “Where do I find him?”

  “In the jungle...”

  A blast of hot plasma leapt from the rifle, blowing a hole in the floor beside the Draconian.

  “I’m going to need specifics,” Magnus said.

  Daaruk eyed the tiny crater, silently smoking, in the floor.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he replied.

  The Draconian camp was well hidden inside the jungle, the huts huddled below the canopy hundreds of feet above. Cold blooded, the separatists might have needed a fire somewhere else, but not on Marakata where the air was heavy with a stifling, oppressive heat. Even if they had wanted to, the Draconians knew the Imperials used satellites to search for camp fires, always on the lookout for bivouacs like this one. There were stories of whole villages wiped out by orbital bombardment, simply because they looked suspicious.

  These rebels were laying especially low. No electronic signals from communications or other equipment. Nothing to give their position away. They didn’t want to be found, certainly not by the human occupiers.

  Unfortunately, KB-8E was not a human. It was a killbot designed to track and destroy.

  Covered in emitters that mimicked the surroundings, giving it near-perfect camouflage, KB-8E lurked just outside the camp, watching the Draconians through spectra far outside human or Draconian perception. The robot knelt behind the bush-like flora. Its body, the surfaces reflecting an image of the bush, was armored and capable of withstanding both projectiles and energy weapons. On a spindly neck, KB-8E’s head didn’t have a face except for a bundle of sensors, all different sized, used to analyze a range of inputs including visual, sound, and even smells. It was precisely the latter that helped KB-8E find the separatist camp due to the Draconians’ particularly poor personal hygiene. Lastly, beside the bundle of sensors was a large red lens, the business end of a particle beam accelerator.

  Taking aim, the killbot fired an invisible ray of subatomic particles at a separatist standing guard. The beam passed neatly through the Draconian’s chest, turning his heart and other internal organs into a freshly warmed soup. Not aware he was dying until he was already dead, he dropped where he stood without making a sound.

  KB-8E leapt from its hiding place and landed several yards away in the center of the camp where most of the other rebels were sleeping. Starting with the closest, the killbot began punching the Drac in the upper chest. With each punch, a long bayonet blade extended from the robot’s wrist, piercing the victim before retracting again as the arm pulled away. In this fashion, the killbot repeatedly skewered the Draconian until moving on to the next one.

  By the time KB-8E reached the fourth rebel, the remaining three were sufficiently aware that the night had gone terribly wrong and had reached for their own weapons. They confronted the robot who jumped over their heads, landing behind them where it focused on a Draconian’s spine instead of his chest cavity. Although the emitters on the robot’s frame attempted to keep up, mimicking the surroundings, mostly they were covered by a thick and sticky layer of blood, making camouflage difficult.

  When the last of the rebels was dead, the killbot stopped and surveyed the scene.

  Although everyone was satisfactorily eliminated, the robot’s scan noted its intended target was not present. This disappointment was magnified when a projectile, fired from long range, pierced KB-8E’s neck, the only part of its body that was not armored with ballistic mesh. The killbot’s head popped into the air before landing, upside down, at the feet of one of the dead Draconians.

  Magnus Black left the high-powered sniper rifle with the rest of his gear and walked into the rebels’ camp. He leveled his flashlight on each of the Draconian bodies, or what was left of them, until he was satisfied Gereral Ekavir wasn’t one of them.

  The beam of light landed on the killbot’s head, the severed neck pointing up. Cut off from the body’s main power supply, the particle gun was no longer operational, but Magnus kept out of its line of fire just in case.

  “Even for a killbot,” he said, “that’s some impressive carnage.”

  A light on the robot’s head blinked. “Thank you.”

  “My contact told me General Ekavir was at this camp,” Magnus added.

  “I, too, was hunting the general.”

  “Did Colonel Grausman send you?”

  “Indeed.”

  “Me too.”

  “Then why did you shoot me?” the killbot asked.

  “I don’t like robots,” Magnus replied. After a pause, “What do they call you?”

  “Unit KB-8E.”

  “Really? Not a proper name like Robert or Cuddles?”

  “No.”

  With a shrug, Magnus turned and started to walk away.

  “Are you leaving me like this?” the killbot called after him.

  Magnus looked over his shoulder. The light on the robot’s head was still blinking in the darkness.

  “I was thinking about it,” he said.

  “How do you intend to find General Ekavir now?” KB-8E asked.

  “Well, you’ve killed all the Dracs that might’ve told me where he was, so I guess I’m not really sure.”

  “I tracked this group of separatists with my sensor suite. Using it again, I am confident I could find the general’s new camp.”

  “I think your mission’s over, bottle cap.”

  “If you repair me,” the robot went on, “I can assist you.”

  Magnus shook his head. “Sorry, I work alone.”

  “As do I,” the robot replied, “but a temporary partnership would be mutually beneficial.”

  Magnus faced the robot, cocking his head to the side so he could see the killbot roughly right-side up.

  “Fine,” he said.

  As a younger man, Magnus Black served in the Imperial military as part of their counter-insurgency forces on Marakata, the Draconian home world. At the time, he was known as Pitt, but he was also called other names like the Fixer and the Finisher. The Draconians had their own name, too. They called him the Butcher of Bhadra.

  The township of Bhadra was founded at the confluence of two rivers, deep in the territory controlled by the separatists. Its location was strategic, both for the river traffic that brought raw materials out of the thick jungle and because it contained a religious site, a tiered pyramid where the native Draconians went to pray for their fallen brethren.

  The head of the local cell of revolutionaries was named Ekavir, but his followers called him the Jade General. Under his command, the separatists had repelled every attempt by Imperial forces
to take the town. To the people of Bhadra, and even some in the Imperial ranks, the Jade General seemed unbeatable.

  Colonel Grausman, the military governor, considered leveling the town from orbit, but the outrage it would cause, especially the inevitable destruction of the temple, would inflame opinions both on the planet and off-world. The Draconian cause, despite Imperial attempts to portray them as mindless savages, was popular among many in the rest of the empire.

  The colonel concluded that a team, led by the right person, would infiltrate Bhadra and take out any hostile enemies they encountered. The choice for leader was easy. Pitt had distinguished himself by getting jobs done that everyone else had failed in. What Colonel Grausman did not consider was that everyone in Bhadra was hostile and Pitt was very literal about following his orders.

  Wearing power armor, a carapace that covered his entire body, Pitt walked into the village along with a squad of Imperial soldiers. Almost immediately, groups of rebels began charging, swinging their Draconian warstaffs. The troops opened fire with blaster rifles, cutting the separatists down in droves. Before long, regular townspeople joined in, defending their homes and businesses against the invaders. As the civilian death toll rose, the Imperial soldiers started dying as well. Still, Pitt led his men deeper into the village. After their blaster power packs had reached zero, drained of energy, the soldiers switched to their own edged weapons. For his part, Pitt wielded a vibro-blade, a five-foot long sword with handholds along its length. Resonating at high speed, the cutting edge could slice through nearly anything and certainly the scales and bones of the Draconians.

  Carving through the crowds against him, Pitt searched in vain for General Ekavir. After hours of fighting, Pitt found himself alone atop the temple pyramid. His armor, dented and scarred, dripped with the blood of those he had killed as if he had swum through a river of their bodies. Below Pitt, down the stone steps draped with corpses, the population of Bhadra lay where they had died. Like a terrible god of death, Pitt bore witness to what he had done. He felt sick, but knew each one he had killed had wanted him dead. They gave no quarter and he gave none in return.