Author's Note: Hello, all! Here is the long-awaited third chapter of "False Imperium." I think I owe you an explanation as to why I've been so quiet over these past few months: basically, I made the mistake of starting this story when I was grappling with some personal issues, and while I thought I was able to sustainably keep it up, it turned out I wasn't. I'm in a much better place now, though. I'll try to post updates every two weeks, and I'll probably resume my other story, "Gifts of the Blood God," too. I hope I can make it up to you guys!
Unknown World, 2.12 AVY:
The shuttle had touched down atop a circular exhaust vent on the north side of the city. Nobody seemed to have noticed it, yet—traffic swarmed through the skies of this world, so it was a tall order to pick out one odd-looking craft—but Major Fren Tykon, Imperial Intelligence agent, was taking no chances. He left three of his six death troopers behind to guard the spacecraft, with orders to destroy it if they were overwhelmed. Under no circumstances could Imperial technology fall into the hands of these alternate humans.
"Major Tykon, report," radioed Captain Brigain, of Pursuer, heard through a device implanted in the agent's ear canal.
"We have secured the perimeter, captain," said Tykon. He wore no helmet, exposing him to the reek of industrial fumes issuing from the vent beneath him. Perhaps that decision was a mistake. "I am leaving behind a contingent to guard the shuttle, scouting ahead with the rest. No contacts on the outside of the city's structure."
"Very good. Keep me informed, and avoid unnecessary engagements with the natives." Brigain spoke as if he were Tykon's superior, despite the fact that Tykon was part of a different chain of command entirely; the man was insufferably arrogant. It couldn't be helped.
The vent was some one hundred meters wide, its surface a grate with gaps barely smaller than Tykon's boots. He had to be careful walking here. To one side, the nearest habitat spire rose far into the sky, and to the other, a drop of more than a kilometer looked out over a brown wasteland crisscrossed by rivers of industrial pollution.
"Look for a maintenance entrance," he told the leader of the death troopers, Lieutenant Caldar. "Something we can use to get inside."
Finding anything was a challenge—the exterior of the nearby spire, and just about every other vertical surface in sight, was a dense jumble of pipes and hanging cables and narrow windows—and it didn't help that the sun was setting behind a thick blanket of smog, plunging the murk into a more complete darkness.
"Here, sir," said Caldar, pointing. To any observer his words would have sounded like a garble of static, but Tykon's ear implant decrypted it. "Looks like a smaller air vent."
Smaller than the one they were standing on, at least; this vent, a stone's throw away and maybe a meter off the ground, was still nearly as wide as the shuttle, with a fan spinning behind metal slats. Occasionally a piece of debris, drifting down from the upper levels, would be caught in the air flow and hurled over the ledge.
"Then let's cut our way through it. Do find a way to stop the fan, too."
Caldar shouted out orders. His men approached the vent, one of them with a plasma cutter, while Tykon scrutinized the architecture; you could tell a lot about a culture by their buildings. He'd learned that lesson as a cultural analyst on an Outer-Rim planet, populated by primitives. What little sophistication they'd had could be gleaned from the decorative frescoes and columns they put up around their mud huts. They'd been a fascinating people, and he'd almost felt sorry for them when the Empire put them all to work in the silver mines.
The slats on the soon-to-be-destroyed air vent, arranged radially, converged in the center on a metal plate, which bore the two-headed eagle Tykon was familiar with from the briefings. These people put their iconography everywhere, as if they thought it could ward off evil. It was likely they were an authoritarian society, likelier still they were dominated by religious impulses, and while the former was to be lauded, the latter would have to be beaten out of them by Imperial enlightenment. Gods belonged in the same rubbish heap as the Force.
The lead death trooper switched on his plasma torch, sending a cascade of sparks shooting down from the air vent. Tykon looked away. When the flickering light ceased, and he looked back, there was a round, uneven hole cut into the vent, revealing the spinning blades of the fan behind it. That was another problem; but while one death trooper had been cutting away at the metal, another had been prodding at the wires of what looked to be a control panel, and it only took a few minutes' tweaking to bring the blades to a halt. Between them were gaps large enough to crawl through.
Tykon quickly glanced to either side, then stepped forward towards the newly-cleared entrance. Nobody had climbed out to investigate his shuttle; there was seemingly no reaction from the people inside the spire. So far, so good.
"Let's go." The sooner he got away from the exhaust fumes under the landing site, the better, but given the tottering, rusting immensity of this city, and the millions of people doubtless living in squalor within it, he didn't imagine the inside would be much of an improvement.
The death troopers led the way, save for one who would hold up the rear. Tykon went in second to last. The air duct was cylindrical, though it turned a corner not far ahead, and even with the outer fan disabled there was a considerable current. It smelled of sweat, and machine oil, and… incense?
He walked. The metal walls of the duct bent under his feet, evidently not designed to support even a single man's weight. Long did they labor in the darkness, broken only by a pool of illumination from Lieutenant Caldar's flashlight, and by a flickering orange glow from up ahead. They turned another corner—there were multiple, this place was a maze—and then they came across a small vent, on the bottom of the air duct, looking out into the room that was the source of the glow. The smell of incense was stronger here.
The lead death trooper crouched down, pressed his helmet up against the grille, and reported back, "There's about a ten-meter drop to the floor. Multiple people nearby, apparently unarmed."
"Let me see." Tykon elbowed his way to the front of the column, and looked out.
Like seemingly everything in this hive city, the room was enormous. It was probably about forty meters across. Stone columns lined the walls, converging somewhere in the gloom overhead, and while there were electric lights, most of the illumination came from candles—hundreds and hundreds of candles, from finger-sized to forearm-sized, arranged around a bulky, humming machine in the center of the room.
These people had built a city seven kilometres tall, and completely rewritten the geography of this planet. What need did they have for candles?
There was more. Three red-robed figures walked among the candles, swinging censers. Incense smoke trailed behind them, swirling and collecting and eventually drifting up to the air vent from which he watched, and he saw that they were not fully human—robotic tendrils reached out of one man's back, another had glowing green eyes and metal tubing replacing his face, the third had no visible flesh at all. He had seen cybernetic modifications before, but this was a whole new level. It had the air of abomination about it.
"Caldar, come look at this," he said. The lieutenant replaced his subordinate at the air vent, which was really only wide enough to fit two people at a time.
"What are they doing?" Caldar asked, in a low voice. The cyborgs down below gave no indication of hearing them. They just proceeded with their strange ritual, chattering among themselves in bursts of static surprisingly similar to the death troopers' encryption.
"Couldn't tell you. But it seems to have religious significance. Note how they're arranged the candles around that machine there—perhaps this is some form of technology worship?"
The machine in question was difficult to make sense of. It had a rounded base, and a multitude of pipes and cylinders crowded around it. Cables ran from its sides to unseen termini in the darkness above. A power generator, perhaps?
A pair of flying objects hovered nearby, and when Tykon got a good look at one of them he saw, with some revulsion, that it was a human skull, augmented with machinery much like the living cyborgs were. One eye socket was empty and the other glowed red. He thought he heard it hum a little.
"Do you see any weapons?" he asked Caldar.
"No, sir, but I wouldn't underestimate them. We don't know what half of those implants can do."
"Hm. The question is, if we kill them, how many more will come scuttling out of the hive?"
"No way of knowing. But this city must be crowded, sir, and I'm not sure we should be drawing attention to ourselves. I recommend we move on and find another egress point."
One of the cyborgs looked up at the air vent. Tykon shrank away from it, but he was not fast enough—the man saw him. He spoke to his fellows in that strange garble of static, then shouted in another tongue Tykon didn't understand, this one more like a conventional language. Were his words a challenge, perhaps? A demand to know who he was and what he was doing up in the air duct? It didn't really matter, because there was no magic method of decoding alien speech—that was a problem for the Pursuer's linguists.
Tykon drew his blaster from its holster and opened fire. A bolt of plasma streaked out, punching through the vent grille and catching the cyborg square in the chest. He collapsed onto the candles with a steaming hole blasted through his ribcage—assuming he still had one—while the two others drew their own weapons, materializing pistols from within their voluminous robes. They were unable to get off any shots before Caldar cut them down with a precise fusillade.
First contact had ended with three corpses, all of them from the other side. Tykon was happy with that.
"Let's get down there," he said. Caldar nodded and started issuing orders.
The flying skulls were nowhere to be seen, which was troubling. Perhaps they had gone off to warn somebody. The Imperials had to act quickly.
One death trooper kicked out the grille, sending it to clatter on the ground ten meters below; another lowered a cable, down which Lieutenant Caldar climbed, followed in turn by the two troopers and finally Tykon. It was good to stand on solid ground again, as opposed to the flimsy metal of the air duct. The floor vibrated slightly, the rumblings of some far-off machinery carrying through the vast structure of this hive, and he wondered just how many millions of people lived above and below him. He was reminded of Coruscant, though he'd never been there.
Tykon smelled burning flesh. He turned and saw that the candles had lit one of the dead cyborgs on fire, his robes providing ample kindling even if most of him was fireproof metal. Sparks shot out as electrical elements overheated.
"These are more advanced cybernetics than anything I've seen," Caldar remarked, prodding another body with his foot. "They're barely human anymore. Is everyone in the new galaxy like this?"
"We'll find out." Tykon pulled on a prosthetic arm, then shot at its base until it detached entirely. He handed the mutilated piece of machinery to a trooper. "Carry this with you. Scientists aboard the Pursuer will want to analyze it. Caldar, document what we're seeing here."
"Understood, sir." The lieutenant glanced around at the dead priests, photographing the carnage with a camera built into his helmet. Tykon, meanwhile, raised the ship.
"Captain Brigain, can you hear me?"
"Loud and clear. You haven't called in a while, Agent Tykon. Is everything all right?"
"More than all right. We have made first contact with the enemy. No casualties on our side, three on theirs." Tykon watched the burning corpse. Flames licked at it, flickering, and the few visible scraps of flesh charred and blackened. Hopefully it wouldn't set off a fire alarm and draw still more attention.
"I thought I told you to avoid engag—"
"With respect, captain, you are not my superior."
"I am your ride home. If you want me to still be here when you—"
"I have no time for this. I will keep you posted on our discoveries—my lieutenant should be beaming photographs to the ship now."
He cut the line to the Pursuer, confident that, no matter his idle threats, Brigain would not incur the wrath of Imperial Intelligence by marooning one of its officers. The man was arrogant but not a fool.
Tykon motioned for his death troopers to follow him towards the room's single door. It was open by a crack—presumably that was how the skulls had gotten out—and swinging it further revealed a long hallway, dimly lit, lined with stacks of crates. The ceiling was high and there was a double-headed eagle motif etched into the far wall every few meters. Doors were spaced out along its length, leading to what must have been a warren of storerooms and passageways.
"Left or right, sir?" Caldar asked.
"Good question." He listened. There were hurried footsteps on the left—perhaps someone was coming to investigate the shooting. "Sounds like we've got hostiles on their way, from the left. Let's capture them if we can."
That was one of the objectives of the mission: take prisoners. Scientists aboard the Pursuer and back at the Kryos Installation were eager to get their hands on one of these alternate humans, to determine how they differed from those populating the Empire, and perhaps to identify any strengths or weaknesses of strategic significance. Tykon had heard speculation that the people of this new galaxy were telepathic or that they were all Force-users, though he had seen no evidence to support that.
"Of course, sir." Caldar and a death trooper charged down the hallway, black shapes moving more quietly than they had any right to, while the third crouched behind a crate, ready to provide covering fire.
Five people burst into the corridor, not far in front of Caldar. Three men and two women. They were local police, perhaps, wearing bulky grey flak armor and wielding rifles, and each had a stylized dagger painted on the left shoulder, probably some sort of heraldic symbol. There were no visible augmentations, indicating that they were a class different from the cyborg priests.
Their leader shouted something unintelligible. No point in responding with anything but blaster bolts. The trooper who had stayed behind opened fire first, catching one in the stomach and forcing the others to shelter behind crates and in doorways, while the Caldar closed the distance. Tykon watched from the rear, occasionally sending off shots with his pistol whenever targets presented themselves. He would let the professionals do their work.
Caldar turned a corner, fearlessly, and gunned down one of the alternate humans with a swift burst. Pulsating red light reflected off the smooth surface of his armor, and he moved on to his next target. Across the corridor, one of the police caught a death trooper with a close-range hit from what looked to be a laser, marking the first Imperial casualty. Tykon frowned and blasted the culprit.
Two remained, against Tykon and two troopers, and the pressing question was how to take them alive.
"Close to melee range!" he shouted. "Disarm them if you can!"
Caldar bashed one man's face in with the stock of his blaster. That might have killed him, but at least it accomplished the goal of putting him out of action, and of intimidating his remaining ally. The last police officer dropped her weapon and threw up her hands.
"We got her, sir," Caldar said, prodding her towards Tykon. The other death trooper took her into custody while the lieutenant went back for the man he'd knocked out.
"Great," Tykon said. He glanced at the man Caldar had hit, who was now moaning on the ground with hands cupped around his battered face, and at the fallen death trooper, who did not stir. "Three dead and two captured, and all it cost us was one of the Empire's most elite soldiers. I expected better from you, lieutenant."
"I'm sorry, sir."
"Hm. I'm sure you are." Tykon scrutinized the female prisoner. She looked like an ordinary human, like any resident of Coruscant or Corellia—save the uniform. Her hair was brown and there was a thick coating of grime on her cheeks. She had her hands clasped behind her head. Her eyes were closed, and she was muttering something—a prayer, perhaps?—while hanging around her neck was a double-headed eagle, cast in brass, a devotional icon if he ever saw one.
Tykon ripped the pendant off its chain and turned it over in his hands. Upon closer inspection, the eagle had certain irregularities—only one of its two heads had eyes, and the feet were subtly asymmetrical, one more angular than the other. Strange. The dual heads had to represent a dual power structure, some sort of spiritual or temporal alliance, and the angular foot called to mind the cyborg priests' implants. It was a shame he hadn't captured any of the cyborgs alive; they might have had much to say.
"We can't haul his body all the way back to the shuttle," Caldar told him, pointing at the dead trooper. "What should we do?"
"Take his gun and comms equipment, blow up the rest with a thermal detonator. Should keep the enemy from gathering anything useful."
"Right, sir." The lieutenant got to work programming a detonator for a delayed blast.
Tykon turned back to face the prisoner, and dangled her pendant a few inches from her face.
"What is it you people worship?" he asked, though of course she wouldn't understand. "What petty gods and monsters populate your collective psyche?"
Once the linguists cracked the alien language—and they were working on it now, up in orbit, analyzing thousands of hours of transmissions—she would be able to tell him.
