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 tusks. 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 outl
awed.”
“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.”
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.
“Some of the K’thonians landed in that field over there,” he said.
The judicator lifted his horns, protruding in a loose spiral, and his fiery red eyes stared off toward the crops.
“How many were killed here?” Gul asked.
“The owner of the farm died before his wife could shoot the attacker.”
“What of the corpse?”
“The farmer was buried in accordance with our traditions,” Kerch replied.
“No, I meant the K’thonian.”
“Ah,” Kerch nodded, “that was sent to the capital for analysis.”
“Pity,” Gul said, “I’d like to see one firsthand.”
“I’m sure my government will give you full access to the body,” Kerch said. “As we always do...”
A grin curled in the corner of the Magna’s mouth. “Indeed.”
When the two reached the farmyard, a young Tal came running from the house to greet them. When the boy saw the stature of the Magna, he stopped abruptly, not taking his eyes off the visitor.
“Don’t be rude!” his mother said, following her son out onto the dirt driveway.
“May we come in?” the inquisitor asked.
“Of course, of course,” she replied, ushering them into her home.
The kitchen was much darker than the outside and it took Kerch a moment for his eyes to adjust. Gul was the last to enter, his muscular frame barely fitting through the narrow doorway. Taking a look around the kitchen, he noticed a jar filled with dark liquid sitting on one of the shelves.
“What is that?” the Magna said.
Kerch winced, knowing exactly what it was and that the judicator knew it as well.
“Some of my neighbor’s livestock got loose,” the mother explained, “and trampled our fields. He couldn’t pay money so the local inquisitor awarded us a pint of his blood.”
“An example of Blood Law, I presume,” Gul replied.
“You presume correctly,” Kerch said with more anger than he intended. “It’s our tradition.”
“Of course,” Gul said. “But why keep it? Why not just pour it out?”
“Oh, we couldn’t do that,” the mother said. “That would be disrespectful of our neighbor’s restitution.”
“But it has no value per se...” the Magna went on.
“It’s a symbol,” Kerch said. “Perhaps you don’t understand...”
“I understand,” Gul replied. “The humans have an expression: an eye for an eye, although I
don’t think they keep the eye in a jar...”
Kerch’s own eyes narrowed. “Indeed.”
Lord Andre Santos swirled the wine in his glass while overlooking the gardens of his newly purchased estate. He hadn’t set foot in the gardens, but the robots were keeping them well- manicured as far as he could tell. Several bushes were carved into shapes that were not bushes, including a dog and a duck. Santos wasn’t clear why a bush couldn’t just be a bush, but he had largely given up asking questions at this point.
Probably for the best, he thought.
Drinking wine was becoming a hobby for him. The estate had come with an extensive cellar, stocked with vintages bottled on another planet. Santos imagined robots picking grapes and stomping them under metallic feet in wooden tubs. In Brazil, he had visited a few wineries but never got a taste for wine, preferring coffee. Now he drank it all the time, usually alone. The estate was large enough for a small village, but Santos lived there entirely by himself.
Finishing his glass, the captain of the Merope went back inside from the terrace and sat in a cavernous living room on a couch bigger than a school bus.
“Shall I turn on the holoscreen?” a disembodied voice, the estate’s AI, asked him.
Without enthusiasm, Santos replied, “Certo.”
On one side of the room, between two pillars, an image materialized like a partially translucent curtain. On the screen, an advertisement appeared:
IDEA FURNITURE:
WE BUILD THE PIECES;
YOU DO THE REST!
Suddenly, the ad vanished in a field of static, replaced by images of green jungles and native villages. Stone buildings, some of them destroyed, faded into view and then dissolved again, replaced by pictures of lizard-like people, some of them carrying bladed staffs.
Imperium Chronicles Box Set Page 35
