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Chapter 7: The True Enemy
“What the Hell happened here?” asked the Imperial Colonel as he waded his way through the blood and gore that blocked the alleyway we left recently.
“It’s pretty safe to say it’s a murder, sir.”
“A murder, or multiple homicides?”
“That’s slightly trickier.”
“Count the bodies, Private. Counting may not be your strong point, but you can count up to 10, surely?”
The Private gave the Colonel an angry glare. High ranking, arrogant assholes, the lot of them, he thought.
“The problem is, Colonel, that there aren’t any bodies.”
“Look around you Private! There is blood everywhere! I’m pretty sure that’s a lung over there! Of course there are bodies!”
“Yes, Colonel, there are remains, but no bodies. Our strategy is basically to count the number of fingers we can find and divide by 10. There’s another team, they’re trying to count the number of hands, and divide by 2. And that’s a kidney, sir, not a lung.”
“You have to count the fingers to identify how many were killed?! Who did this anyway?”
“We have 5 witnesses, all slightly “dodgy” according to the local militia, say that they saw a man who resembles Dr Caligary of the Imperial Academy, D.I.E area, the one that was seeing his Imperial Highness about 24 hours ago, walk into that alleyway, followed by two men. Caligary walked out, but the two men didn’t. There’s a lot of blood here for just two men, that’s the enigma.”
“So, Caligary did it? That’s impossible, surely. He’s a professor at the Draconian Instit….”
“That’s the thing, Sir. I’ve checked up on the D.I.E. It doesn’t exist.”
“It doesn’t…..?”
“Exist. There is no such thing as the Draconian Institute of the Empire. It has never been a reality.”
“So what does Caligary do for a living?”
“That’s the other thing, sir. We’ve asked around the entire capital. No one knows where Caligary lives. It may even not be his real name. In fact, we’re pretty sure it isn’t his real name. It sounds too little like an Imperial name, and as you know, only citizens of the Empire get into the academy.”
“Curious.”
“Indeed.”
“I’ll report this to General Nolt at once. It concerns someone who was allowed near his Imperial Highness, so heads will roll if he was allowed past security with a weapon. Our heads.”
“If I solve the mystery, is there any chance of a promotion, Colonel?”
The reply of the Colonel will not be printed here, due to the distasteful nature of the remark.
Meanwhile, the Zwei-Imperials were also doing a patrol nearby the village of Tadcaster. They were 20 minutes away from visual contact, and they would have been faster if their ships were not so slow. They had chosen to take the largest ships they had (Enforcers, Gunships, Missile Cruisers, etc) because they had little experience in fighting dragons. All they knew was that Grig Orig, the biggest, baddest flagship of the First Empire, wasn’t strong enough, so it was necessary to have some military muscle going up against their new mysterious enemy.
“18 minutes ‘till we reach Tadcaster, commander.”
The Commander smiled. Commander was really a temporary rank in the Empire; it just meant you were in charge of a ship. His Imperial Rank was Lance Corporal, a high rank, but not as high as the powers-that-be that ran his life. Still, being commander of a rather…. meaty…Punisher was good enough for him. Being an advance scout craft was even better, more glory.
“Good. We are moving at top speed?”
“Yes, sir. 15 lengths per minute sir.”
A length was about 10 metres in our measurements. The term “length” was only used by the Empire, mainly because no one else had any use for measurements, and because it made the Empire sound like they knew what they were talking about.
“Is everyone at their battle stations?”
“Yo-ki.” Roger.
“Good. Let’s see if we can do what no Imperial fleet has ever done before. Let’s go get us a dragon!”
There was a general murmuring of approval. Suddenly, one of the Ensigns at the front of the ship muttered something to the other Ensign.
“Is there something I should know?” asked the Commander.
“Nothing much, Commander, sir. Just something flying past us. It’s flying quite fast actually.”
“What is it, Ensign?”
“It’s registering on our sensors as human, sir. Must be a glitch.”
“Must be a glitch, my ass. Arm tracers!”
“Yo-ki.”
Everyone scrambled to where they were supposed to be. It seemed that the “everyone at the battle stations” question asked earlier had been met with a stream of lies.
“Fire on target!”
“Firing!”
There was the rather loud sound of tracer bullets being fired out of the side cannons. Then there was silence, only broken by the Ensign.
“Target was hit, sir, but it didn’t take any damage.”
“Please tell me you are kidding. Never mind. We have plenty of time. Fire Gravediggers.”
The Gravediggers were the mines on the side of the Punisher. Each Punisher carried 6 in all, with 2 to each of its sides and 2 aimed towards the front.
“Gravediggers 1 and 2 fired. Hit! …Hit! Both Gravediggers impacted sir!”
“And yet from the Ensign’s face,” said the Commander, “I am guessing that didn’t do anything at all.”
The Ensign didn’t even need to comment. The Commander had already given the order.
“Rotate the ship by 90 degrees. Let us see our target.”
By the time the words were out of the Commander’s mouth though, the target decided to make it easier for them. It moved in front of them.
“HALF SPEED!” the Commander yelled. Before the words were out of his mouth, the Punisher was moving at half speed. The Speed Adjuster valued his life as much as anyone, and wasn’t prepared to crash the ship headlong into something that could take two Gravedigger mines and still keep going. The Punisher would come off worst of that exchange. “What is that thing?” What was in front of the Punisher is difficult to describe. The creature was humanoid that was for sure. But it was unlike any human the Empire, even the Zwei-Imperials, had ever seen. This humanoid was different colours. One side was black from neck to foot, the other side white. On the beings chest, there were a complicated series of lines, forming what looked like a sigil, from back in the Ancient Age. The image in your mind is probably that of Azel, but this definitely was NOT Azel. Azel was thin, not very muscular and extremely tame looking. This creature was the opposite of all those traits. He was muscular to the point of impossibility. He looked like he was a raging droid, programmed to destroy things, even though he was going at a speed equal to the Punisher, and not moving otherwise. He certainly wasn’t thin, but he was big boned. Parameter wise, though, this thing looked like Azel in that he was as tall, and shared the same colour scheme. What he did not share was Azel’s face. This thing’s face was almost perfectly blank, except for 2 small, needle-like eyes that looked like a man possessed. There was no evidence of any nose, although there was an almost invisible slit that resembled a mouth three quarters down the face.
If this didn’t separate the being from Azel, what was noticed next would. The person, drone, creature, whatever, had two shining, metal wings. They reflected the sunlight back onto all and sundry, and they looked as sharp as swords. It was the Ensign who noticed the resemblance at first.
“Sir, is that an angel?”
When the creature’s eyes narrowed even more, it was clear it took offence at that remark. “I am no angel. I am no devil.”
“What are you, then?”
“I am an executioner. Yours, your Ensign’s. Your Emperor’s. Your family’s. Your friend’s. All. Humanity looks to me as the Reaper, it’s final sight.”
“Commander, this looks pretty grim.” the Weapons officer muttered, trying not to laugh at his own joke. Shall I fire the front Gravediggers?”
The Commander was too terrified to speak. He simply nodded “yes” and watched through the view screen as the homing mines hurtled through the sky towards the darkangel in front. The Commander nearly fainted when the mines bounced harmlessly off of the metal wings of the beast, which had folded neatly in front.
“Fools.”
“Fire Tracers!” ordered the Commander in a frenzy, “Fire the other two Gravediggers! Fire everything! Tell the other ships what we’re up against here! Tell them to hurry!”
“Fools.” the not-an-angel repeated, as it bounced mines, tracer bullets, and everything else the punisher had to fire off of its wings. “Do you not realise you cannot kill that which is already dead?”
“He’s a….” the noise of the engines drowned out the rather rude word that came out of the Commander’s mouth.”…ZOMBIE!?”
“Not a zombie, whatever that may be. I am a drone. But I am a gifted one. I was brought back from the dead, and I was improved. I was improved beyond the understandings of the Ancient Ones.”
“IS THERE ANY WORD FROM THE MAIN FLEET!?”
“None yet, Commander.”
“You mortals are all fools. You were given a planet to live on. You live on one of the few planets that can support life in the entire universe, and you wreck it. Time after time, you destroy this world.” There was a pause as the creature grabbed a tracer bullet out of the air with his hand, then threw it away. “You just never learn. And now that your curiosity has been satisfied, I must destroy you.”
The drone’s wings flapped in the wind, and propelled it towards the Punisher. In the blink of an eye, the left wing carved…. yes, carved…. through the Punisher’s hull. Anyone in the path of that wing was mutilated, decapitated, or otherwise killed instantly. As for anyone who missed it, they were left in wonder, wondering where the other half of their ship had gone. The two halves of the Punisher fell to the ground, creating an almighty noise that gave all the citizens of Tadcaster a fright. All aboard were wiped out in seconds, either from the fall, the scythe-like wing, or from shock.
By the time the main fleet had arrived, all that was left were two halves of a ship, 20 bodies and a couple of unexploded Gravedigger mines.
The drone had gone, but he had left its signature.
“Ok, so that’s 19 fingers. One’s gone.”
“Yeah, but I’d expect that sort of thing. He was probably wearing a ring, and one of our “dodgy” witnesses borrowed it indefinitely after they realised the deceased had no more use for it.”
“Huh?”
“They stole it, dumbass.”
“Oh.”
The two military men who had been drafted in to mop up the rather grisly murder scene in the Imperial Capital were bored beyond belief. They wanted to wrap this up, then let the gore decompose. Well, they didn’t live nearby, so they could live with that.
“So we say two?” one Private asked.
“Unless one had rings on all ten fingers.” the other chuckled.
“Funny. Come on. I want to get to the bar before it gets too late. That’s when the riff-raff fills it up, and I haven’t had a stiff drink for weeks.”
“When you work in this line of work, you need stiff drinks.”
“I’ll drink to that!” the private laughed, as he cunningly secreted a lone finger, wearing a ring, in his hip pocket.
Edge was not laughing. He was wondering when the hell this desert was going to stop, and he’d reach the sanctuary of the Forest of Zoah. It can’t be too far now, surely?
As if his prayers had been answered, he saw a forest. Lush green scenery! Trees! Water! Civilisation!
And that’s when he saw it. That’s when he got Deja Vu.
That’s when Edge noticed that Zoah had been attacked.
And destroyed…