Imperium Chronicles Box Set

by W. H. Mitchell

  “We don’t share the same background. You remind me of Yostbot.”

  “Who?”

  “Dyson Yost,” the utilitybot replied, “or what used to be him.”

  “Isn’t he pretty old?” the policeman asked.

  “Apparently, although that doesn’t matter if you’re born a robot. I’m over eighty years old.”

  “Well, you look great.”

  “Thanks,” the utilitybot said, “but I’m saying Yostbot lived a long time as a human and he kept all of those experiences once he became a cyberling. He’ll probably never see things the same way as I do.”

  The policeman placed his mechanical hands on his waist as if to pull up a pair of non-existent pants. Realizing his mistake, he put his hands back down.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said absentmindedly. “We’re all robots now...”

  The utilitybot, who had been a warbot a week earlier and killed scores of people while doing so, nodded slowly.

  “I suppose so,” he said.

  To Mel, the forest seemed darker than the last time they had delved into the thick woods. Silandra once again took the lead with Mel close behind. On this occasion, however, they had a different robot along with them and they knew there would be no reunion with Silandra’s daughter Sisi. The prior trip had ended in tragedy, but Mel was hopeful that this time, things would be different.

  “Can you sense anything?” Mel asked.

  Like other Dahl, the Sylva had psionic abilities although only the females were so gifted.

  “Nothing in particular,” she replied. “There’s just the usual clutter of thoughts. It’s getting colder so everyone’s concerned with filling their winter caches.”

  “It must be interesting to read other’s minds,” Davidson remarked.

  “Sometimes,” Silandra replied. “Are robots ever psionic?”

  Davidson paused before answering. “That’s a good question.”

  “Can you read his mind?” Mel asked, pointing her thumb at the robot.

  Silandra stopped and concentrated. “I get a sense of what he’s thinking, but that’s all...”

  “Well,” Davidson said, “I have a gravitronic brain that mimics the organic mind. Perhaps it shares some of the same characteristics.”

  “Like the rest of my people,” Silandra replied, “I’m more attuned to the forest creatures. Your mind, Mel, is also a bit cloudy.”

  Mel blew a raspberry. “Wouldn’t be the first time!”

  “I couldn’t read the other robot — what was his name, Squire — either,” Silandra said. “Did you ever see him again?”

  “Yes,” Mel replied. “He and Sir Golan came to visit before the invasion. Pretty sure they got off the planet though.”

  “Good,” Silandra said. “I’m glad...”

  After several more hours in the forest, Mel touched Silandra’s arm.

  “We aren’t going past that froglings’ camp, are we?” she asked her.

  “No,” Silandra replied. “I’m taking a different route.”

  “Are we in danger?” Davidson asked.

  Silandra shook her head. “The Katak, as they’re called, shouldn’t bother us if we give them ample room.”

  “That’s what you said last time,” Mel grumbled.

  “That was due to the Necronea,” Silandra replied. “I don’t sense the same hostility anymore.”

  “Let’s hope so!” Mel said.

  After a while the ground grew moist, even spongy in places. Pools of water were scattered among the trees and the forest plants gave way to marshy vegetation. Other shapes appeared in the gloom.

  Mel tripped over something. Taking a flashlight from her pocket, she shined it on a gravestone.

  “Goddamn it!” she cursed, rubbing her knee as she got back up.

  “What is this place?” Davidson asked.

  “It’s an ancient cemetery,” Silandra replied. “This is where we entered the Necronea’s underground city.”

  “And where we’ll find a portal off this planet,” Mel added.

  Silandra raised her head, her face turning pale. “Someone’s coming...”

  “Ghuls?” Mel asked, raising her fists.

  From all around them, frog-like creatures emerged, their primitive spears raised threateningly.

  “Katak,” Silandra replied. “They want to know why we’ve returned.”

  One of the Katak stepped forward, his eyes leveled squarely at Silandra’s.

  “What’s happening?” Davidson asked.

  “She’s talking to him telepathically,” Mel replied. “Just wait, but be ready to fight if we have to...”

  After a few tense minutes, the froglings lowered their spears.

  “It’s alright,” Silandra said. “Come, we must follow them...”

  The Katak led the way deeper into the cemetery with the others behind them. When they reached a pile of broken stones, they stopped.

  “What happened to the tomb?” Mel asked in alarm.

  “The froglings destroyed it,” Silandra replied. “Their leader said the Necronea had poisoned their minds and they would have nothing more to do with them.”

  Mel raised her hands. “Well, let’s just move the stones and dig up the entrance...”

  “No,” Silandra said forcefully. “The froglings have made it clear they’ll kill us if we try.”

  “Well, shit!” Mel said. “What do we do now? We need to get off this planet!”

  “Hold on,” Davidson said. “There might be another way...”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Each morning, when Lord Rupert Tagus III awoke in his brig cell, he assumed it was a nightmare. The tiny room with its single bunk, sink, and disgusting toilet was nothing like the accommodations he was used to, even during his exile on Bhasin. Most times, Tagus would give a little shout which was a cross between a gasp and a scream. Then, when the reality of his situation sank in, he would let out an even louder curse. On this morning, however, something was different. When Tagus opened his eyes, the stony faces of two Imperial marines greeted him.

  “What the hell?” Tagus shouted as the marines pulled him from the bunk and placed his wrists in restraints behind his back.

  “What’s going on?” Burke asked sleepily through the cell wall.

  “I’m being rousted out of bed!” Tagus replied.

  “Is this it?” Burke asked. “Are they taking you to be executed?”

  “Of course not!” Tagus said, his expression changing from anger to alarm. “Are you?”

  The marines remained silent, each grabbing the disgraced lord by an arm and hauling him out of the cell. As they passed in front of Burke, the former lieutenant saluted his former commanding officer.

  “Be brave!” Burke said.

  “Of course I will, you idiot!” Tagus replied, his feet slightly dragging across the floor.

  Although the possibility of facing a firing squad or, even worse, being sent out of an airlock, had occasionally occurred to Tagus during his incarceration on the Baron Lancaster, the very real possibility of it actually happening had not. Being nearly carried by the marines into an awaiting lift tube, watching the doors close, and feeling the movement of the elevator gave Tagus ample time to think about it now.

  It was not sitting well, and Tagus wondered if he would be sick.

  When the doors opened again, he felt a certain relief when, instead of a squad of soldiers holding blasters, Tagus recognized with disdain Lord Captain Redgrave and his crony, Lord Commander Maycare. They appeared to be on the bridge.

  “Bring him here,” Redgrave ordered.

  The marines obeyed, pulling Tagus across the deck until he was standing beside the slightly raised dais where the captain and commander stood.

  “What do you want, Redgrave?” Tagus hissed.

  “Shut up and look,” the captain replied, pointing at the main screen where a live view, possibly from a hovering drone, showed the surface of a planet. A few hundred feet in the air, the drone’s camera
panned around, giving a glimpse of a farm of some sort, long tendrils of green covering most of the buildings. A reddish tint bathed the landscape while small particles fluttered by the lens.

  “Where is this?” Tagus asked.

  “It is, or was, an Imperial colony called Lone Haven,” Redgrave replied.

  Realizing the significance, Tagus straightened, his face brightening with victory.

  “I told you!” he shouted triumphantly. “You wouldn’t listen, but I told you!”

  “Take him back to his cell,” Redgrave replied, his eyes like slits and his face turning red. “Get him out of my sight!”

  “Wait,” Maycare said. “Are you sure this is what you saw on Bhasin?”

  “Of course,” Tagus replied. “I said they would come here—”

  Maycare cut him off.

  “Then what are those things?” the commander asked, gesturing toward column-like towers on the screen.

  “Hives,” Tagus replied. “Where they breed more of those insects.”

  “Are you sure?” Redgrave asked.

  “Well, that’s what Lieutenant Burke thinks anyway,” Tagus said skeptically. “How should I know what they are?”

  The captain nodded to the marines who once again dragged Tagus toward the elevator. This time, he smiled broadly.

  Down a dark hallway, a thick door led to the Abbot’s study inside the Dharmesh Monastery. Bookcases stuffed with tomes, tablets, and scrolls made the modestly sized room rather cramped, and a desk in the middle didn’t help. Of course, the elderly monk was not opposed to technology and the Abbot kept several datapads on the desk as well. Sitting behind it, the old monk was perusing a collection of Dahlvish poetry when he heard a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” the Abbot commanded.

  The Prior stuck his head in with an expression of distaste.

  “The humans have arrived,” he said, making room for Jessica Doric and Henry Riff to enter.

  “That’ll be all,” the Abbot said, and the Prior closed the door.

  Wearing a light coat and sensible shoes, Jessica Doric smiled and thanked the Abbot for giving them an audience. Just behind her, Henry wore a shirt with a stain on it just below his chin. He carried a leather box, about a foot tall, with a closed lid.

  “Think nothing of it,” the Abbot replied generously.

  Doric glanced over her shoulder at the now closed door.

  “I don’t think the Prior likes having us here,” she remarked.

  “Don’t mind him,” the old monk said. “He prefers the company of other Dahl, and sometimes not even them.”

  Besides the chair the Abbot was already using, the room lacked anywhere else to sit so the humans remained standing. While realizing this was rude, the Abbot usually preferred his meetings to be brief. Also, the scarcity of space made additional furniture impractical.

  “Is that it?” he asked, gesturing toward the box in Henry’s hands.

  Doric glanced at her assistant who placed the box gingerly onto the desk. Taking a step back, Henry waited for Doric to do the honors of opening it. She pulled a tab made of ribbon on the top of the box, lifting the lid before handing it to Henry. Reaching in, Doric removed the artifact from inside and placed it on the desk.

  The Abbot admired the object, shaped like a lantern, before finally speaking.

  “Well,” he said, “I really have no idea what it is.”

  The faces of both humans fell.

  “Now, now,” the Abbot went on, “that doesn’t mean we can’t find out...”

  “I hope so,” Doric said, recovering her smile. “I doubt anyone else could.”

  “You’re too kind,” the Abbot replied. “I would say it appears to be Dahlvish in design.”

  “Really?” Doric asked.

  “Yes, I believe so, although very old indeed. You said you found it in the Pellium system?”

  “That’s right,” Henry replied.

  “Well, that’s a bit far away from our home world,” the Abbot said, “but we were once much more adventurous as you know.”

  “You were?” Henry asked.

  “Indeed,” the old monk replied. “The Dahl had an expansive empire many centuries ago, but we eventually learned such things are fleeting. We turned inward instead of outward, leaving our former holdings for others to fight over.”

  “Seems like waste,” Henry remarked, drawing a scolding look from Doric.

  “Not at all!” the Abbot said. “We’ve gained far more from our search for knowledge than we ever did from conquest.”

  “Speaking of which,” Doric said, “do you think we can ask the Pool of Memory about the artifact?”

  The Abbot rubbed his wisps of gray hair while a wry look crossed his face.

  “You know the Prior would disapprove,” he replied, “but I’ve grown rather fond of you these past months, Miss Doric. It’s rare to find a human so interested in Dahlvish history. People are usually more keen about their own past!”

  “Thank you,” she replied.

  “Is that a yes?” Henry asked.

  Just off the bridge, Captain Redgrave and Lieutenant Commander Maycare gathered in the captain’s office. Redgrave’s face burned crimson with anger.

  “Damn that Tagus!” he shouted, pounding his fist on the desk. “Only he could bring a new front to this war when half the fleet is already deployed to fight the Cyber Collective...”

  “If the Magna Supremacy decides it’s a good time to test our defenses,” Maycare remarked, “they’ll find the border barely guarded.”

  “Rupert was always a petulant little prick,” the captain went on, gritting his teeth. “If it wasn’t for his father, he never would’ve gotten command of the HIMS Gorgon. I thought we had finally seen the last of him and now this!”

  Maycare crossed his arms. “So, what are we going to do?”

  Redgrave leaned back in his chair, rubbing his beard. “Flush him out an airlock?”

  “No,” Maycare said, “I meant with this insect horde...”

  The intercom buzzed.

  “Lord Captain,” the voice of the tactical officer said, “we have multiple contacts on sensors, approaching at high speed.”

  “How many?” Redgrave asked.

  “It’s a mass of ships,” the officer replied, “possibly in the hundreds, maybe thousands.”

  With the lieutenant commander in tow, the captain burst through the doorway from his office and onto the command deck.

  “Put it on screen!” Redgrave ordered.

  At the front of the bridge, the wraparound monitor displayed a moving cloud like a flock of birds, its shape shifting every few seconds. Light from the local star reflected brightly against the hulls of countless, tiny ships.

  “Battle stations!” the captain shouted, taking a seat in the command chair. Maycare consulted the computer screen at his own station.

  “The ships aren’t in our database,” Maycare said, “but there’s a lot of them!”

  “No response to hails or transponder codes,” the tactical officer replied. “Sensors show the ships are fighter-sized but aren’t metallic or composite.”

  “Then what are they made from?” Redgrave asked.

  “Some kind of organic material,” the officer said. “It’s like the ships were grown instead of built.”

  Redgrave raised an eyebrow. “Like a plant?”

  “Or a fungus,” Maycare remarked.

  “Hell’s bells!” the captain replied. “Blast them as soon as they come into range.”

  Like a fog bank, the swirling mass of ships descended on the Baron Lancaster. Each craft, shaped like a teardrop of interlaced fibers, moved in unison with the ships around it in a choreographed dance. Moving as one, they weaved back and forth in their approach until, reaching the proper distance, beams from the Lancaster greeted them with flashes of destruction. Cutting through the cloud, the plasma rays slashed at the horde of ships like a red-hot knife, but for each Klixian fighter destroyed, dozens more filled the g
aps in the curtain falling on the warship.

  Inside the Dharmesh Monastery, the courtyard was just how Jessica Doric remembered it. A chilling wind blew down from the surrounding mountains and a round pool, bordered by cut stones, took up the center of the space. The liquid in the pool glimmered with an inner light.

  The Abbot, who accompanied Doric and Henry, motioned with a grand gesture.

  “The Pool of Memory!” he proclaimed.

  “We’ve been here before,” Henry remarked, wrapping his shivering arms around himself. “It’s a liquid computer—”

  “But we’re very grateful to see it again,” Doric said quickly.

  “Of course,” the Abbot replied and waved his hand over the liquid.

  From the pool, a vaguely feminine shape rose slowly until only her feet were still submerged. Almost transparent, her body was smooth like a sculpture carved from water, droplets falling from her outstretched arms.

  “Naiad,” the Abbot said, addressing the shape, “we have questions for you...”

  A protrusion, forming lips, opened on the Naiad’s face. “My pleasure.”

  Doric, who had been holding the artifact against her body, presented the object at arm’s length. The Abbot gestured that she move closer. As Doric did so, the Naiad bent and took the artifact.

  Doric was surprised that the watery hands could hold anything, let alone something weighing several pounds.

  “We’d like to know what this is,” she asked.

  With blank eyes, the water nymph examined the object, running her fingers thoughtfully over the surface. Doric noticed that the artifact remained dry.

  “Yes,” the Naiad said finally. “I have found a reference to this device in my memories.”

  The tempo of Doric’s heart accelerated. She took a deep breath. “Okay...”

  “It is very old,” the Naiad went on. “Dating back to the early expansion of the Dahlvish Empire.”

  “Ah!” the Abbot said. “Just as I thought!”

  Doric, who was becoming more excited despite herself, asked, “But what is it?”

  “It was used as a communication device,” the Naiad replied, “to broadcast messages over long distances.”

  “How?” Henry asked.

  “It amplifies thoughts,” she said, “transmitting them in a manner similar to psionic projection. Those who receive the message, however, only perceive it in their minds.”