Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
AGI
Star Coven
Mage Marshal
Genesis Invasion Trilogy
Valiant
The Asteroid Thief
A note from the author
Tech Warlock
A STAR COVEN STORY
By
Kristoff Chimes
Copyright © 2017 Kristoff Chimes
All rights reserved by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval without permission in writing from the author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
CHAPTER 1
“We should destroy the eggs,” the young research assistant, Sue Xi said. “Before they hatch and kill us all.”
“Nonsense,” Chief Scientist Hugo Smythe said. Fresh from accepting an enormous budget increase funded by the Mage Marshal Service. “Under controlled conditions a hatching is exactly what we want.”
The eggs, taller than a full-grown human adult began to tremble. Sue Xi knew they were dormant. No one had yet seceded in hatching one. Thank God. “It’s wrong.”
Smythe peered down his mood-spectacles at her. Right now, they were emitting a dark purple. “If you wish to be paid by our institute give your wrong-headed attitude a good swift kick, Ms. Xi.”
She bowed. “We’re mad. You know that, right, professor?”
He put an arm around her shoulders.
She suppressed her shiver as she took a full direct blast of his rancid breath.
“It’s science,” he said. “Calculated risk. The only way to beat our enemy is to understand our enemy and to do that we observe it.”
Science, indeed. It didn’t hurt that the commercial value of these eggs was astronomical. And increasing by the second. He wondered if he should let his assistant share his future plans. Perhaps, he ought to sleep with her first before trusting her.
He tapped on the ten-inch thick liquid-steel glass wall. Was it her imagination or did the eggs shudder?
“See?” he asked. “We’re perfectly safe.”
“Professor,” she said and glanced at the large red button on the desk console. It was sealed in a tamper resistant glass cover. “I’d feel safer if I had a key to the the extermination button.”
He sighed and reached for the chain around his neck. Attached was a small key. He handed it to her. “Make yourself a copy.”
She gratefully placed it around her neck.
Smythe sighed and said, “I don’t mind admitting if this goes no further, Sue. Now that we’ve taken the Mage Marshals’ funding, we’re duty bound not to piss them off. Have you met Star Marshal Scar?”
She shook her head.
“Lucky you. I’d rather go toe to toe with the mother of these eggs than piss off Scar.”
Smythe gave her a nudge. “Now do something useful and make me a cappuccino the way I like it. With those crispy chocolate dragon scale scrapings.”
“They rot your teeth.”
He smiled a glowing blue dust magic residue of a smile. “Nonsense. Go. Now.”
“Professor, I studied for twenty years to attain this position, not to—”
“Yes, indeed,” he said and yawned. Distracted, eager to commence business. “We’ll discuss what positions you can adopt to advance your career, later.”
“I don’t understand.”
She stared over his shoulder as the heavily armored door to the laboratory slid aside.
In marched a tall, slim woman, with prominent angular features, and an eye patch of glowing blue dragon leather. She wore a crisp white uniform of a Star Marshal, like it was a second skin. On her hip, in red dragon leather, a holster for her Curse Maker hand gun. She click-clacked across the reinforced steel flooring in knee-high regulation armored boots as she carried a steel attache case.
Her thin lips sneered.
Smythe glanced at Sue Xi’s bulging eyes and whipped around.
Damn it, Smythe thought. She’s eyes and ears everywhere.
“Star Marshall,” Smythe stuttered. “Good, good of you to appear in such a spontaneous and unscheduled manner. My research assistant was just about to make us cappuccinos with those lovely crispy—”
Star Marshal Scar glanced at the eggs. She drew her weapon and aimed directly at the pair of scientists.
Smythe shot Sue Xi a dark look as if to accuse her of betraying him. She stared blankly.
Smythe threw up his hands, “Star Marshall, I was only joking when I said—”
Star Marshal Scar fired twice. A plasma bullet tore Smith’s head from his shoulders.
Sue Xi raised her hands above her head, slowly. She sank to her knees.
Scar aimed at the steel-glass, and said in a cold, low tone, “Curse Maker, Steel-slammer express.”
Her gun fired a green, snub-nosed mini-missile that penetrated the glass wall and shattered it.
“What are you intending?” Sue Xi said as she felt for her key necklace.
Scar aimed her Curse Maker once more at the eggs and said, “Curse Maker, head-shrinker.”
A rocket blasted out of the barrel and smashed into the eggs. Showering the laboratory in green sparks. Sue Xi buried her head in her hands. When the green sparks subsided, she peeked through her splayed fingers.
The eggs had vanished. No, not exactly vanished, she realized. Shrunk. To the size of a human hand.
Scar stepped inside the chamber. Stooped and scooped up the dozen eggs. Placing them in her attache case.
Sue Xi whipped the key necklace off and plunged it into the lock. She flipped up the glass casing. Scar whipped around and aimed at her.
Sue Xi brought her fist down in violent arc hammering the red button. But her hand never completed the journey. Her arm below her elbow became a charred and smoking stub
Blue smoke drifted out of Scar’s Curse Maker. She blew at it and winked with her one good eye, before marching out of the laboratory.
CHAPTER 2
Star Marshall Scar seethed behind her bombproof desk in her dome-shaped office of the orbiting space station Mage Marshal One. Her early-warning spell bot, a tiny nano robot cursed with licensed magic and grafted to her skin, had begun to make the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention and do the fandango with electric zeal.
She stared at the steel-blast doors to her office and reached for her Curse Maker.
Too late.
She ducked behind her desk as the doors exploded in at her. One sliced through the air and embedded deep in the wall behind her.
In rushed three Mage Marshals in full combat armor. Nanobot liquid steel armor with the Service insignia of a five point silver star over a pair of dragon wings on a silver circle. Shoulder pads: a pair of dragon wings and the head of a dragon to symbolize the balancing of the source of magic, the wizard dragons. They aimed their Curse Makers at her head.
The middle one, in full war-glow armor, stepped forward. “Star Marshall Scar, you’re under arrest.”
Scar sneered at him. “Deputy Star Marshal Gore,” she said adopting the tone of talking to a small child. “Is my doorbell not working again?”
“Reach for your Curse Maker, Scar,” Gore said. “Make my century.”
She smiled and relaxed. There had to be an explanation. A Coup d'etat? Gore wanted her job, he
made no bones about that. But rebellion? He was too loyal to the Service. Not to mention, his cyborg brain was too dimwitted to have the imagination to pull it off.
A practical joke, then? Her one hundred and forty fourth birthday was last week. A misunderstanding? Gore was too shrewd to make a mistake like that.
Then it was serious. So she decided to view their intrusion with the respect it deserved.
She bellowed, “What the fuck are you Dust Jackers doing wanking your Magic Dust fantasies in my office?”
Gore cocked a head to one side. He glanced at the other two. Their weapons dipped a fraction before bouncing back to aim at her. It seemed her response wasn’t quite what they had calculated for.
“Ma’am,” said Mage Marshal Orcas. His all black armor with gold trimming, signifying the Mage Marshall Covert Operations Unit, for which he was the commander, lowered its magic-resistance force field. “If you promise to offer zero hostility, then there’s something you need to see.”
Orcas nodded at Nex.
The rusting, yellow armor helmet of Mage Marshall Nex opened up. Her Magic Dust hued eyes glowed green according to the latest anti-magic serum she was testing on herself. The Chief Weaponry Mage Marshal narrowed her eyes and reached for a holograph disk that was attached to her arm. She tossed it in the air.
It spun on its axis and threw up a three dimensional holographic video of Scar entering the secure underground science bunker. There she killed their chief science officer, Smythe and proceeded to steal a collection of eggs.
“Dragon eggs,” Nex said. “A dozen of them.”
Scar ordered the holographic video to pause. She walked around it, then through it and finally ordered it to zoom in on the research assistant.
“Bring her to me.”
“We anticipated that request,” Mage Marshal Gore said. Orcas brought Sue Xi into the trashed office.
She bravely held a bandaged stump with what seemed a thick, blue slime crawling over it. On seeing Scar, she wilted.
“It’s OK,” Scar said. “No one’s going to harm you. Now, tell me straight. Who did that to you?”
Sue Xi took a deep breath and with tears welling in her eyes, she pointed her stump at Scar and said, “Ma’am, you did this to me.”
Scar nodded. “Good.”
Gore removed his helmet. He shook his head. “You finally lost the plot, Scar.”
“Star Marshal Scar to you, Gore,” Scar snapped. “Don’t you see?”
“See what?” Gore said.
“An impersonation as impressive as this can only have been performed by a small select group of Warlocks.”
“Warlock?” Gore said and shook his head.
“Yes, male witches belonging to a coven or clan,” Scar continued in her childlike voice, “you might have heard of their kind, no? Seeing as how it’s your fucking job to protect civilians against the illegal us of magic prolific with their fucking kind, Gore!
Gore rolled his eyes, “I’ve heard some defense cases in my time, but yours, Scar, is about as believable as me flagellating a dragon wizard’s flabby cock.”
Nex and Orcas shared a look. “I’d believe that,” Orcas said.
Gore did a double take. “I was joking—”
“No,” Nex said. “I mean a warlock makes sense.”
Scar tapped the skinphone grafted to the back of her left hand and ordered a lineup of likely warlock suspects.
A holograph of three warlocks appeared. Orcas instantly dismissed two of them. “We have those two under surveillance. Who’s the third?”
Scar stared at the masked figure. “We have no facial recognition software matches. But he goes under the title of Tech Warlock Jugo Hex.”
“Of the Hex clan?” Gore asked.
Scar nodded.
“What makes this warlock so special?” Gore asked.
Scar dropped the childlike mimicking tone and resumed to her normal, authoritarian snarl, “Jugo Hex is a master of the magic art of shape shifting. He’s refined his craft to imbue shape-shifter spells into nano tech. Sells it on the black magic market. But the real high quality stuff he keeps for himself.”
Orcas nodded. “But where would he get the detailed skin mapping information on you in the first place?”
“First things first,” Scar said. She tapped on her skinphone. “Bring me Mage Marshal Malice at once.”
Gore groaned. “Malice?”
“He’s the only one of us who’s successfully tracked a shape shift warlock,” Scar said. “Unless of course one of you would prefer to volunteer?”
The others glanced at each other and then down at their feet in silence.
“Thought not,” Scar said.
Ten minutes later, Malice’s holograph appeared in his street patrol armor. He nodded to Gore, Nex and Orcas. He saluted Scar.
“Ma’am,” he said.
“Ah, Malice. How’s life at the academy?”
“Wiping the asses of snotty magic-flu infected recruits is what I live and breathe for, ma’am.”
She sighed, “I’m immune to your sarcasm spell, Malice. How’d you like a day trip excursion? Take a few recruits with you. The experience will prove invaluable.”
“You mean I’ll need canon fodder?”
“Exactly.”
“Doing what?”
“A shape shifter hunt.”
Malice glanced at the others. They seemed to be avoiding his eyes. It was good to be surrounded with a line of supportive volunteers.
“Ma’am, with all due respect,” Malice said, “I’d rather eat dragon shit for a week.”
Nex snickered.
Scar nodded. “That can be arranged, Malice.”
Malice sighed, “What’s this shape shifter supposed to have done?”
“Broken into a high security research bunker posing as me and stolen a dozen dragon eggs,” Scar said. “He also—”
“I’ll begin at once. Send me the details. Anything else?”
Scar shook her head. “Good luck.”
“I don’t need luck when I’ve got a Curse Maker. Malice, out.”
His holograph evaporated and was replaced by a spinning Mage Marshal silver star.
Orcas sighed. “Mentioning the dragon eggs was a nice touch, Star Marshal,” Orcas said. “Right, Gore?”
Gore shrugged and reluctantly nodded.
“The right motivation,” Scar said and stared out through her glass wall to the planet below, “applied scientifically produces wondrous results.”
She turned on the three Mage Marshals and Sue Xi. “Madam, please accept the apologies of the Mage Marshall Service and kindly accept our top class medical supervision.”
Sue Xi bowed and left the room under the guiding direction of a medical robot.
Scar glanced at her Mage Marshal Commanders. “As for you three. Get the fuck out of my office, and take my door with you. And next time you’ve got an issue, use my fucking doorbell.”
CHAPTER 3
Malice ordered his Mage Master to the Mage Marshal Academy launch pad. A dome city on the dark side of Earth’s moon known as Marshal Town. It existed to recruit and train the future Mage Marshals of the universe. The only thing that came between magic and chaos.
Mage Marshals were the police, the judges and the executioners of the anti-magic law.
As Malice marched through the academy’s winding passages, he picked on the first three recruits he came across that suited his needs. He could have picked on any of several thousand. Recruits of all ages from eight to eighteen years. Many, if not most, war orphans. For them, he was their father, their mother, their teacher, and sometimes when all else failed to mold them into the servants of anti-magic, he was their executioner.
But one thing he was definitely not was their friend.
All recruits were smart, athletic and dedicated to maintaining a magic exclusion zone around Earth and its neighbor planets. And sworn to restoring order to the outer colonies.
They were trained to practice law
, interpret as judge and jury and convey the sentence with due diligence. No matter what the crime, they would not demonstrate favoritism or prejudice. They were not ordinary people with relationships, friendships, lovers or enemies. They were devoted vessels for the anti-magic establishment. Impartial peacekeepers. They were the hope for a beleaguered race of humans. The galaxy’s guiding light for a hundred trillion souls ravaged by the barbarism of magic.
Or they were dead.
Seeing three eighteen year old recruits idly larking about in each others company was enough to make them fine candidates to teach a hard lesson about the Mage Marshal Service.
He spotted three partially shaved heads from the back. Each sported a mop of hair on the top of their heads. One mop of half-blonde, half midnight black, with a crimson center slash belonged to a female recruit, by the unusual name of Night Fear. Unusual, that was, for a human. For her mother was a Wydra witch.
Star Marshal Scar’s pet project. He despised her heritage and although ordered to give her the benefit of the doubt and train her to police magic, he knew somewhere in her dark heart she’d eventually feel a full moon stirring in her blood. Hear the irresistible calling of her treacherous people.
That day spelled trouble. And he wouldn’t mind preventing it someday soon. Night Fear caught the brunt of his personal style of favoritism.
“You’re volunteered, Recruit.”
“For what, Mage Marshal?”
“For the rest of your short, miserable life.”
He picked on her two cohorts. A recruit of similar age. Brandon Gully. Smart. Athletic and cocky. A born leader with an arrogant slash of blue hair.
Fine canon fodder.
Finally, there was another female recruit. Farah Lexx. Eighteen. The smartest of all. A natural redhead with an insatiable scientific curiosity. Destined to join the ranks of Mage Marshall Nex’s gadget squad.
Star Marshall One, a sleek black super stealth vessel landed on the pad.
The recruits lined up in formation and saluted the craft.
“At ease, Recruits,” Malice said.
“But the Star Marshal—”
“Is not aboard,” Malice said. “I requested the fastest ship in the Service for our mission.”
Tech Warlock Page 1
