Imperium 30 - Conclusion

The seven guardians of the Klackons never panicked: They moved calmly and deliberately. At Meklon, another bug agent found plans for outdated dotomite fuel, just before tragedy struck at Pollus: A major industrial accident that irradiated the entire world. Refakira responded with unconcern, evacuating those of the planet's Klackons who were placed at risk while setting the rest assignments to clean up the damage. By the following year, the planet had not only cleaned up the industrial waste, but reverted to a habitable environment almost as hospitable as it had been before the accident. The evacuees themselves were armed and trained en route as after two years of travel, they reached their destination: The just-rebuilt Silicoid colony of Vox, which they conquered without losses.

Two years later, the Klackons took Trax from the hands of the Psilons so they could no longer threaten the Iranha colony ... even as weapons engineers develop a deadly Omega-V bomb, and a new starship went into production especially for the second - the first but Refakira - of the Seven.



His banks on banks of Hard Beams would be sufficient to deal with any of the fleets the Klackons yet had seen, and could penetrate any planetary shielding that yet existed in the galaxy.

The next year, Beemont reached Altair and found the Alkari defenses wanting. All their assault ships and all their bases burned. The year after, 57 combat transports reached Meklon, and ended Meklar bandit raids forever, inflicting better than five-to-one casualties ... and the new dreadnought for Anticus was ready. In the following year, an earthquake of enormous scale rocked the very foundations of the Mu Delphi colony, but its people recovered rapidly ... unlike the Psilons of Exis, where 55 Klackon transports landed, their troops marching forward in andrium-armored combat exoskeletons carrying deflector shield generators and shoulder-mounted ion rifles, while the Psilon raiders on the surface, outnumbered more than two to one, tried to make do with primitive slug-throwing rifles and duralloy vests. Among the ruins, Klackon engineers discovered plans for a long-coveted but never-to-be-deployed repulsor beam. At Mentar the next year, Beemont, Earwigi, and Fleads encountered the bulk of the Psilon fleet: 56 destroyers armed with death spores meant to murder civillian population from the skies. Their weapons could do nothing against the dreadnoughts, nor could seventeen bases avail. 170 Klackon transports landed behind them, and recovered a neutron blaster design from among 174 factories after inflicting better than nine-to-one casualties.

Altair fell the following year, followed the year after by Maretta, the Psilons' final colony. So as dawn touched the skies of Cryslon in the year 2445, it stood as the only remaining bandit haven in all the galaxy.



Anticus and Dustmit set off across space for that final world, their Phantos-built dreadnoughts representing exactly one third of the Klackon starfleet.



The next year, they came to Cryslon. Eight starships and nineteen missile bases stood in their way...



...temporarily. Two hundred and seven transports arrived with them, very few of which were actually needed.



Last of all, Ngxskgkgrkhgg the bandit lord fought at bay in a narrow cave, too small for ion rifles to be effective. He used all the mass of his stony body to crush his adversaries as he swung an enormous inertial axe against them. The bodies piled high until Refakira Kurosawfly himself alighted in the cave entrance. "Come out and surrender," he advised, "as so many of your people have done. There shall be no further bandit raids in this galaxy. The food and livelihoods of the Klackon people shall hereafter be safe, and of all those civillians who your bandits had taken captive."

Ngxskgkgrkhgg roared with hatred, and bore down on Refakira, the terrible axe swinging high.

An arc of light: Sunlight on steel. The axe fell from Ngxskgkgrkhgg's hands, shorn in twain. The very stones of Ngxskgkgrkhgg's body shuddered, and fell asunder.

Quietly, the ronin stood above the rubble, examining the edge of his katana blade, barely stirring the air with his four membranous wings.

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Back to the Front Page

Imperium 30 - The End of Peace

In 2410, the Klackons ensured that no further Silicoid incursions would occur in their territory, as Anticus, Dustmit, and Earwigi destroyed Ngxskgkgrkhgg's forward raiding base at Vox. With the destruction of the war ship factory at Phantos five years before, this effectively severed contact with the Silicoid raiders. Two years later, Fleads arrived at Meklon to provide an object lesson about the value of peace.



With Meklon's miserable shielding - and nuclear missiles that couldn't even penetrate to the armor of the newest Klackon battleship - its missile bases all fell even more easily than its small combat fleet. Even so, INT-986 refused to make peace and turn around his Stalaz-bound raiding fleet. Instead, the raiding fleet turned around - what was left of it - when it ran up against the colony's missile bases.

In the meantime, Klackon agents picked up Hyper-X rocket designs from Altair and obsolete shielding from the Psilons, on the way to the real advances provided by Klackon scientists: Reajax fuel cells that brought the Silicoids back into communication range and every star in the galaxy into range of Klackon fleets, followed by plans for an armored combat exoskeleton for skirmishes on planetary surfaces and a hard beam for use in the deeps of space. Another agent discovered worthless plans for gatling lasers at Meklon ... as the Klackons prepared to end Ngxskgkgrkhgg's bandit raids for good: Anticus, Dustmit, and Earwigi arrived at Tyr and dismantled its defenses, and 140 transports loaded with Klackons in shielded duralloy combat exoskeletons were launched.



In 2424, they arrived, and claimed the planet's 111 factories, along with the plans for obsolete terraforming techniques ... and a planetary shield, at long last.

The following year, Refakira's rock-busting fleet arrived at Antares, just as computer scientists developed an advanced space scanner that would reveal every planet in the galaxy. The time had come for the final High Council meeting in the galaxy.



Refakira Kurosawfly, the 30th Ronin Bug Overseer, fell a single vote short of claiming the seat of High Master with Klackon votes alone ... and all the bandit warlords, without exception, voted against him.

Refakira hung his head, but would not give up the fight to free the Klackons from the predations of bandit raiders. His watchful agents on Antares reported home with the plans for the ion rifles the Silicoids were distributing to their ground forces there, but the first wave of Klackon forces, outnumberd almost three to one, were still defeated on the ground. RBO-30 could have accepted this if Ngxskgkgrkhgg were willing to see reason - but instead, when the holochamber lit up, it was Tachaon who appeared: The only bandit warlord not already at war with him. "Times change," Tachaon informed him. "Our Non-Aggression Pact is broken." The room went dark. Refakira sighed, and looked out across the galaxy.



There was no time to waste. The following year brought another small leap forward in terraforming technology, and the year after saw the advent of Klackon ship-based deflector shields as powerful as the Silicoid planetaries.

As a hundred transports hit the surface, outnumbering the Silicoids by more than three to one, with a massive technological advantage, it also saw the fall of Antares. The Silicoids would try to reclaim the world two years later, but less than two thirds of their transports reached the surface, and they failed utterly. And in the meantime, the Klackon people were proving their rights at ultra-rich Phantos to the Psilons.



Just four years after an agent found the Psilons' plans for colonizing toxic worlds, battle was joined in the sky of Phantos IV, the world for which the Klackons had fought Silicoid bandits for ages. Beemont destroyed an armed Psilon colony ship, leading the way for Anticus to plant a Klackon colony.

Tachaon responded by officially declaring war. The bandits had shown their true colors: There was no one at peace with the Klackons in all the galaxy.

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Next: Conclusion

Imperium 30 - Completing the Set

In the year 2389, Anticus and his latest warp-3 inferno colony ship finally reached the volcanic world of Endoria III, at last achieving contact with Skylord and his Alkari bandits, who refused to even trade with the Klackon people. The newsdroid certainly took notice, observing as well the pitiable state of the one-planet Alkari empire. (Their ultra-poor former colony near Mentar had long since been conquered by the Psilons in a typical bandit feud.)



The Silicoid war was still raging ... if raging is the word I mean. The rocks sent another armed colony ship to Talas, which the new-built defensive base repelled easily, and Klackon agents at Phantos came home with plans for a deep space scanner far inferior to the insect version. Earwigi did fly to the Silicoid star of Antares, but retreated as soon as he arrived - he'd only gone to scan the enemy fleet. Peaceful projects were speeding along though; just three years after the last GNN report, Dustmit's arrival at icy Iranha, far off to Kholdan's northeast, triggered yet another message for all the galaxy to see.



If any bandit leaders really meant to merge with the peaceful Klackon people though, they had a funny way of showing it. The Meklar, having finally achieved the technology needed to reach the Stalaz colony, were sending all four of their armed colony ships ... along with a major escort: Their entire 11-cruiser fleet.

The Klackons had weapons of their own by that time, but most were far away, on the Silicoid front.



Cicado's new battleship made short work of the defenses at Phantos, the Silicoids' ultra-rich colony. Armed with banks of heavy ion cannons and some of the most accurate targeting systems then extant in the galaxy, it could still handle Silicoid fleets and bases alike in 2394. It would be obsolete within three years however: A Klackon agent observing war preparations in the Altair system managed to pick up plans for an inertial stabilizer device that would be installed on all future Klackon starships. By the following year, when the Meklar fleet arrived at Stalaz, Cicado had arrived aboard his battleship, as had Dustmit, and with six missile bases to assist them, they had no trouble defending the planet. The next Meklar fleet to arrive, in the year 2400, was shrugged off without any help from a fleet, just before the development of scatter pack rockets rendered its security complete. The Klackons held more than half the votes at that year's galactic council, and on seeing all this, the INT-986 wisely offered Refakira peace.

Two years later, Klackon combat technology underwent another series of breakthroughs.



Silicoid plans for a fusion bomb were lifted by insect agents even as scientists managed another leap forward in industrial technology - and therefore starship miniaturization - and completed a working prototype of a warp-4 Fusion Drive. Two years later, after Refakira agreed to Tachaon's proposal for an increased trade agreement, another agent reported on the details of Ngxskgkgrkhgg's oldest, most thoroughly obsolete Silicoid terraforming technology.

Meanwhile, Refakira finally managed to convince Skylord that it was in both their interests to initiate trade. That conviction lasted all of three years.



While trade continued, before Skylord declared war, another bored Klackon agent reported from Psilon Maretta on a thoroughly obsolete Mark II battle computer. The joke was only emphasized when a Klackon scientist - whose appointment followed immediately after the agent's - unveiled plans for a Mark V. With the latest deflector shields ready the following year, just in time for a GNN special report that placed the Klackons first in the galaxy in advanced technology, even ahead of the Psilons - and the poor Alkari last, lagging behind the Silicoids - and a brand-new warp-4 dreadnought completed just for Fleads, it might be observed that Skylord exhibited singularly poor timing. Of course, space bandits have never been known for their intelligence.

Over the next few years, Klackon agents continued their plodding work: One lifted death spore plans from Mentar with a shudder; the plans were buried forever once the weapons' terrible effects were learned. Then, in 2409, just as the Beemont formed a colony at Whynil - the last habitable star system still unclaimed in the galaxy, in its farthest northeastern reaches - another agent acquired long-obsolete hydrogen fuel cells from the Meklar. Of course, that was the year after the machine people declared another Klackon war.

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Next: The End of Peace

Imperium 30 - War Breaks Out

Even as Refakira feared - though he did his best to teach them the ways of peace - the bandits were not content to sit and work their lands and exchange goods with the Klackon people. First, as one of them claimed another star somewhere, they called a council of all the galaxy's leaders, proposing a vote for one being to rule the galaxy. Refakira reluctantly accepted his nomination, and voted for himself, knowing full well what any bandit warlord would do with the absolute power they proposed. This didn't sit well with his election opponent, as "Granid" revealed his true colors ... as Ngxskgkgrkhgg the warlord, king of grinding rocks, of death and pain.



Just one year later, as the Klackons - with ever fewer scouts in place across the galaxy as their pilots were recalled to lead colony missions instead - established a base on Stalaz, just near enough to Meklon for contact to be achieved, Refakira made his largest trade agreement yet, with the machine people of INT-986.



He could only hope the peace would hold on that front while he dealt with the Silicoid threat: An armed colony ship and Morey bomber escort were already en route to Mu Delphi, but Cicado was waiting aboard his armed starship, and Earwigi's was on the way. A similar fleet would reach Pollus before long, but that colony was mature enough to build a pair of Hyper-V missile bases, and with Dustmit's laser fighter to support them, they made shorter work of the enemy than had Cicado and Earwigi, suffering no losses of any kind. Stalaz itself had to be defended when an armed Psilon colony ship arrived - demonstrating that, trade agreements or no, bandits would show their true colors - but Dustmit and Fleads, the latter in his new destroyer-class war ship, were up to the task.



Refakira took the opportunity of speaking with Tachaon again, hoping the battle had taught the old warlord a lesson - and the hope seemed not in vain. Together, they agreed immediately to a non-aggression pact which would secure peaceful Klackon from Psilon predation, and the Psilons from the resulting retaliation, at least so long as it lasted.

Soon after the signing of the Klackon-Psilon Pact, just as Klackon scientists developed a personal deflector shield, Captain Beemont was nearly lost in battle. His scout ship soared far across space to the east of the galaxy, and in orbit at a golden star, found a monster-ship known only as the Guardian. Had he activated his ejector pod an instant later, he would have died along with his ship as the Guardian's stellar converters, channeled through a high-energy focus, burned his ship away to its component atoms; only by a hair's breadth did his escape pod - as his ship could not - escape in time into hyperspace.



Devastating though its power might be though, the Guardian was aptly named, and would not leave its home system. Refakira wisely said, "We have no quarrel with it. From now on, let us leave it in peace."

In spite of the Silicoid war, peace indeed became the watchword of the Klackon people. Another High Council came and went, but as the Klackons held a veto, and everyone else but their Silicoid opponents abstained, it was a meaningless exercise. Three armed colony ships and a pair of Morey bomber-destroyers were repelled at Pollus - by its missile bases and Beemont's new starship - while their new Kraken rocket boat and armed colony escort were equally helpless at Kholdan itself. While the war with the rock-head bandits was raging, Klackon scientists developed class-40 Terraforming technology, an ion cannon for space defense, and advanced waste reduction technology.

It was then that the INT-986 chose to declare war on the Klackons as well, still apparently seeking all the fruits of their labors for its own. Refakira responded by increasing his reconnaissance and espionage activities: "I'll worry about them when they develop the fuel they need to reach any of our colonies." His agents also managed to reverse-engineer some scraps of alien technology, but they weren't really of much use to him or his people.



They came up with Controlled Barren technology - redundant with existing tundra and inferno techs - while watching for signs of aggression from the Psilons, just as insect scientists were completing an improved space scanner. They found ways to improve factory construction techniques with no new factories needed building. And to top it all off, proudly returned to Kholdan with plans for warp-2 nuclear engines moments before a Klackon science team showed off its new sub-light drive, with a cruising speed of warp 3.

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Next: Completing the Set

Imperium 30 - To the Stars!

The first to be called in for duty was Anticus Dispositionus - crazy like a fox. It was rumored that when the wind blew the wrong way, he couldn't tell a mosquito-hawk from a sawfly, but there was method to his madness, of a kind. As soon as the Pollus colony was established, Anticus set out in a scout ship built especially for him, to run a recon mission across the stars. In the course of the following years, half the others set out as well, the better to learn the nature of the galactic neighborhood and warn of incoming alien bandits.



They crossed the stars, sending back reports of lush or hostile planets, as Refakira's people struggled to understand new technologies: First in the field of propulsion, then in planetology ... and then word came, first from Captain Dustmit Emic Roscopic, then from Captain Cicado as well, of a Silicoid presence in the east. Though work started at home on industrial improvement technology, the Klackons were nervous, and not without reason. Just as they were finally putting the finishing touches on their homeworld factories, they learned of the Silicoid bandits making a move on the galaxy.



With three star systems already in their rocky appendages, the Silicoids were well ahead of the game. It would be two years more before the Klackons completed their first advance in modern technology, with ecological restoration techniques - and starting development of further technologies that Refakira knew would now be needed: Along with plans for colonizing icy Regulus, work began on a missile jammer, defensive rockets, and shielding. It was a full year later that Fleads Lig'ollander - a little parasite of a warrior, so pale as to be almost ghostly, rumored always to carry enormous wealth with him - set out with a cargo of suspended-animation life support chambers toward the vast but distant world of Talas. Once he arrived a few years later though, depositing his cargo and kicking them out of stasis, he hurried back to Kholdan though: Fleads had more work to do.



He raced out in his new colony cruisers, with more frozen bodies in the hold, just a year before the latest construction and planetology technologies were complete, and not long before Klackon computer scientists achieved a breakthrough of their own. His colleagues continued to fan out across the galaxy, discovering new planets - and the bandit forces there. Captain Beemont buzzed about a a Meklar scout in orbit up at Exis, and Dustmit's tiny voice crossed the deeps of space to report on an entire Silicoid colony at the green star of Tyr in the east. Worst still, just one year after Fleads and his payload of colonists landed at Herculis, Earwigi Mayflyriosbro called back to Kholdan in a panic: He had been chased from Exis by a trio of Psilon Starfighters. The bandits were arming themselves once more.

The Klackons quickly prepared defenses, completing the development of new rockets and shields for their missile bases, followed by the irridium fuel that would allow their ships to reach Psilon worlds. The brains were suitably impressed, and their bandit leader, Tachaon the Magnificous, agreed to parley with Refakira. Quietly, the old ronin said, "You have a star system of your own, and others that your technological power will no doubt soon allow you to reach. Prosperity is not a zero-sum game. If you seek to steal from the Klackons, it will only weaken us both. Therefore agree instead to enrich yourself through trade." Mindful of the bugs' superior range and war-production capabilities, Tachaon reluctantly agreed.



By 2362, when he met the Silicoid warlord Ngxskgkgrkhgg - who had long toiled to persuade people to take him for Granid - Refakira had high hopes of ending the Klackons' bandit troubles simply through wise words, reason ... and superior technology. In the intervening years, his people had learned to colonize nearly every type of planet in the galaxy, up to and including fiery inferno worlds; had developed duralloy armor to protect them from bandit attack should any occur; and even before tripling the power of their battle computers, had been named the top technological power in the galaxy, though the Meklar were not far behind and the Psilons nipping at the machine-peoples' heels. The bugs had colonized icy Regulus, and Earwigi was already on his way to claim another world for the insect people. True, the Silicoids had claimed the toxic worlds of Vox and Phantos - the latter, the richest world in all the galaxy - and true, they had done so with a heavily armed combat fleet, but when he saw Klackon technology in action, even "Granid" agreed it was best to trade, though he remained uneasy with the bugs, and his agreement was worth less than half of the one with Tachaon.

Taking nothing for Granid, least of all Ngxskgkgrkhgg, Refakira urged Earwigi to hurry as well as he could - and in 2364, he arrived at Phyco - no Phantos, certainly, but by far the richest world among the Klackon lands.



The golden droid took notice: None of the bandits, for all their rapacity, had managed to claim six systems as had the Klackons, and the very next year, Fleads would add the jungle world of Mu Delphi to the tally, at the center of the galaxy. There was every reason to believe that the peaceful Klackon farmers could prosper indefinitely, sharing some of their goods with one-time bandits in fair exchange for such goods as the bandits themselves produced. The Klackons were optimistic - and so would likely have perished quickly had Refakira taken anything for Granid.

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Next: War Breaks Out!

Imperium 30 - The Magnificent Seven

Refakira Kurosawfly bleakly stirred the air with his four membranous wings, looking deep into his teacup miserably. Even when his waitress rotated her head with interest, as if to take him in with every facet of her compound eyes, he didn't look up, nor appear to notice. She stretched, all the way up her legs, to the ends of all four wings and even the sawlike ovipositors she would one day use to slit open a plant and deposit her eggs, and still Refakira didn't appear to notice her. She smiled, and moved in closer, slipping around behind him. His katana and wakazashi she dared not touch - nor his person - but hanging from his belt there was a slender purse. Perhaps it had once been fatter, but it would hold enough, perhaps, for her to pay for a new frock, to replace the threadbare one she wore. She reached out silently, carefully....

A brilliant arc: Sunlight on steel. The waitress gasped, too shocked to scream: Refakira stood facing her, his katana gleaming in the sun where its arc had intercepted the path of her forelimb: Where he had stopped it, impossibly, in mid-swing. The chitin of her forelimb's exoskeleton, still unharmed, rested against the deadly edge of the blade. She dared not move it; she dared not move at all. Another arc of light flickered, and the katana was back in its sheath, and only then did the waitress dare to breathe once more. Quietly, Refakira warned her, "It were better not to approach a samurai from a blind side - especially when he seems distracted."

Numbly, the waitress nodded, and Refakira looked down to the earthen floor and added with bitterness and misery, "Even if he is a ronin."

Another glinting arc of light, smaller, shimmering, and a rolling clink. A single coin, fair pay for the tea and a not-insubstantial tip, settled against the teacup. The wind of the samurai's passage rippled the threadbare fabric of her frock; the doorway darkened, and then was light again. He was gone. The waitress looked to the floor in shame.

The ronin traveled on across the world of Kholdan, alone in his freedom, his independence of mind and action on a world of colony drones. Yet a time came when he was needed, not by any single colony but by the whole of the Klackon people. So there came a day when he arrived in Starport City, to observe the launch of the first functioning star cruiser ever built in the star system Kholdan.

He was no longer alone. Along with Refakira came the greatest and most self-aware warriors of the planet's diverse cultures and peoples. They were the best of an awfully bad lot, it must be admitted, but at least they were the best. Only seven in all were fit to serve the people of Kholdan - in the sense of "sufficiently capable of independent thought to so much as pilot a scout ship" - including himself.

It would have to be enough. The Klackon people had faced bandits from time to time from among the stars, and the Psilons, Silicoids, Meklar, and Alkari were ready to sweep down again, steal the hard work of their pincers, and slay them all. Once more they needed a ruler to guide them: Someone independent of their lockstep castes; a warrior without a lord. And so they turned to Refakira Kurosawfly, and named him RBO-30: The 30th Ronin Bug Overseer of Kholdan.

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Next: To the Stars!