Hatchling Read online

  Hatchling

  Chris Fox

  Chris Fox Writes LLC

  Copyright © 2020 Chris Fox

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  The Magitech Chronicles

  Previously On

  Interlude I

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Interlude II

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Interlude III

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Interlude IV

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Interlude V

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Interlude VI

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Interlude VII

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Interlude VIII

  Note to the Reader

  The Magitech Chronicles

  Buckle up, because you’re about to enter The Magitech Chronicles. If you like Hatchling, we have a complete seven-book prequel series with an ending already available.

  We’re also working on a pen & paper RPG and the Kickstarter went live right around the same time this book came out. You can learn more at magitechchronicles.com or our Magitech Chronicles World Anvil page.

  We’ve got maps, lore, character sheets, and a free set of rules you can use to generate your own character.

  I hope you enjoy!

  -Chris

  Previously On

  You know that annoying feeling when you pick up a sequel and have to make that monumental decision? How well do you remember the previous book in the series? Do you dive right in or do a reread?

  I always tell myself I’m going to do the reread, but I can never wait and so I jump right into the latest book. Sometimes I can’t always remember what happened, so my solution for my own books is to write a Previously On, delivered just like the recap before most of our favorite TV shows.

  Here’s what happened in Dying World, told from Jerek’s perspective.

  Last time on Magitech Legacy…

  Hey there again, uh…you. So, I’m supposed to recap my amazing adventures. Here’s the TL;DR version.

  My planet blew up, and I got off. Along the way I picked up my dad, my best friend Briff, and a local cybered-up pawn broker named Arcan. He brought along some muscle…a girl named Rava who turned out to be my sister.

  I took control of a Great Ship in orbit called the World of Xal, run by Guardian, my new magical assistant, apparently. We used the Word to save my alma mater. Did I spell that right? What language is that even? Not ancient draconic, though it’s close.

  Anyway, I saved 17,000 students, plus Highspire, the pyramid where we all attended lectures. They’re all in the level 14 cargo bay. The end.

  How about we try a longer version that makes me sound much, much cooler? As you’re picturing me, try to imagine the sexiest man you’ve ever met, and that he tripped and fell into a bucket of awesome.

  The long version…

  The story began with me picking a magical lock to an armory door, deep inside a derelict dreadnought from the war that marooned my people on the planet Kemet.

  It had been locked for ten millennia, and I was hired to solve problems just like that. Most relic hunters fail. Their O2 runs dry, or they run into lurkers, or their planet tumbles into the sun.

  Not me. If I’m good at anything it’s staying alive, and I excel at creative solutions. I used flame reading to peer into the past to get the door code, and inside found an armory full of ancient magitech weaponry.

  I invoked the mercenaries armament clause, which means I get to keep what I can physically carry, if I can use it. So I put on a suit of the Heka Aten spellarmor, despite being what you might generously call a guy with a slight frame. And by slight I mean hadn’t ever held anything heavier than a game controller.

  Spoilers, that armor changed my life. I still don’t understand the magic, but it accelerated my muscle growth, and quite literally overnight I went from zero to…well, average at least. I can see muscles when I flex in the mirror. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

  So I lugged this armor back to my ship, but that ship, the Remora, was jacked by lurkers. Let me explain. Lurkers are space pirates. That’s not what I grew up believing, mind you. Our holos paint them as canabalistic monsters who will eat your sister and drain your atmo before stripping your ship.

  The bastards murdered my crew and my captain, and then brought our ship back to the LZ to steal the loot I’d unlocked for them. That pissed me off pretty badly, as you might imagine. That anger made me push myself and I snuck aboard one of the landing struts before they took off. Heroically snuck, I mean.

  How did I breathe, you might ask? Well that’s where I started learning how special the armor I’d taken was. I prayed for a helmet, because this armor didn’t have one. The armor answered…it literally grew me a helmet, and even fellow eye-twitchy grammar police will agree it was literally.

  That helmet had atmo…and I was able to fuel it with my dream magic. I survived the trip back to Kemet, and snuck away when the lurkers landed. I carefully reconnoitored. Reconnited? Screw it. Scouted. I carefully scouted the landing site and used my legendarily awesome spellpistol Ariela to take out, like, six guards as I escaped into the surrounding foothills.

  The armor made running easy, and I trotted my delighted ass all the way back to civilization. I still had problems, but I was alive. That was the last moment of blissful ignorance, of childhood, that I will ever experience.

  As I was cruising home on our tram system the armor casually informed me that a large comet had been thrown at our planet by someone with divine levels of void magic. That comet destabilized Kemet’s orbit, and the planet began tumbling into the sun.

  If you were me, just some average archeologist long on talk and short on experience, still paying off student loans and living at home with your father, how might you react to this information? Who would you tell?

  For me the only real option was my mother, who was dating the minister of our world. She was the first girlfriend, basically. Before that, my mother was the headmistress of the Academy, our most prestigious magitech university. She worked there for four years, and the woman who worked there both before and after her was an implacable force of nature named Visala. We’ll get to her later.

  I took the tram home, and received my father’s unwavering support as I rested and prepared to greet the new day with a smile. No. I’m lying. It was a tram wreck. My dad was quite rightly pissed, because I’d taken out a bond. I’d agreed to pay it back from my haul.

  Thankfully, I still had the armor, and could in theory sell it to the same guy I’d taken the bond from. Trouble was…I knew how important the armor was. I couldn’t just give it up. Arcan needed money though, so I made a choice that will forever haunt me. I sold him Ariela, the spellpistol my father had given me when I graduated. She’d been in the family for a lot of generations, and she was more than just a gun. She was family.

  I thought I’d be able to get the money, and buy her back. Now I’ll never have that chance. Again…getting ahead of myself.

  First I called my mom to tell her what I’d learned. She already knew about our world coming apart and seemed
alarmed that I did too. She told me that if I could reach her she could get me onto a ship before our world disintegrated.

  The quakes worsened as I took the tram to her office, and I saw a pillar of rock, buildings, and people ripped out of a neighboring city, then flung up into orbit. That event rippled outward, and caught the tram I was riding. I was hurled into space, but thanks to the armor, I survived and clawed my way back down into orbit.

  I raced home to tell my father what was going on. We grabbed my best friend Briff, a dragon hatchling, who was about to be evicted from his dorm at the academy where he’d been squatting for months undetected. Briff spent all his time playing Arena…our biggest sport. It’s both a video game and a real life game, and both are amazing fun.

  Right up until you learn that your world is tumbling into the sun.

  Briff, myself, Arcan, his daughter Rava, and my father all headed back to the place where the lurkers had parked the Remora. I was gambling that they hadn’t had time to move it, and turns out I was right.

  I took out almost all the defenders singlehandedly, including their leader. I said something witty like…depths, I can’t remember. I’m sure it was awesome. Everyone was impressed.

  But! There’s always a but. I was heroically injured during the fight. My knee was messed up pretty bad, and I woke up in a lot of pain. It turns out there were two people in the brig, both lurkers.

  Vee, a no-nonsense artificer with auburn hair, an incredible smile, and a traffic-stopping ass, and her brother Kurz, a quiet soulcatcher…one of their culture’s dedicated. Vee used her life magic to heal my wounds, making her even hotter in my book.

  So we added her and her brother to the crew, and I have no regrets. I am occasionally creeped out at her casual murder vibe, but hey, everyone has flaws. I don’t judge.

  Anyway, we piloted the Remora off Kemet and into orbit. This whole time there was a detail I left out. The armor had been telling me things and supplying me with information, like where the lurkers were when I heroically took them all out.

  Well, it turns out the Guardian was the ship I’d taken the armor from. And it told me that if I could take the ship back from the Inurans that maybe I could use it to save people on our world.

  The who now? So, let’s talk about the Inurans. When people say Inurans they really mean the Inuran Consortium, the premier magitech artificers in the sector. And the richest people anywhere. And the people who threw the comet at our planet. &^%$ers.

  So, we landed on the Word of Xal, and we took it back from those smug bastards. We took them out, and I flushed them like corrupted atmo. It cost us though. We lost Arcan, and he had Ariela on him when he went. They’re both a part of the Word now, and always will be. I don’t know if that’s comforting or terrifying.

  Anyway, the ship was ours, so I used it to save the Academy I mentioned earlier, along with about seventeen thousand kids. And headmistress Visala, who didn’t love me as a student, and loves me even less as the captain of the Word of Xal.

  Did I mention that part? I had to go through a bunch of badass trials. Real pew pew snarky comment FTW kind of stuff. I pulled it off, and saved the things I most loved. I didn’t do it alone.

  My crew and I are a team now. But we’ve got a whole new set of problems, which you’re about to hear all about.

  I left out one tiny detail, which will be very relevant. Remember Visala? She isn’t human. I don’t know what she is, but she can regenerate instantly, and doesn’t appear to age.

  Dun dun dun.

  Interlude I

  Xal’Aran, demon prince and Hound of Xal, rose from his throne along the brow’s calcified ridge, inside the deity’s massive cranial cavity and carved from the god’s bleached bone. He withdrew Narlifex from his scabbard, and rested the falchion’s curved blade along his shoulder as he peered down at the purple star blazing below him.

  The Mind of Xal pulsed in thought, as it often did. A dreaming mind? Or a god operating on planes of existence Xal’Aran couldn’t even conceive?

  What does it matter? Narlifex pulsed into his mind. Our father lives. We did that. He may do with that life as he wills.

  “I don’t accept that,” he growled back as he strode to the edge of the cliff overlooking the cranial cavity. It hadn’t been so very long ago when he’d been Aran, war mage in the Confederate Marines. “I am no one’s pawn, nor will I ever agree to turn a horde of rampaging demons on the sector.”

  Is that what you believe father will someday ask of us? the blade pulsed thoughtfully. Narlifex was growing in intelligence, but the blade was young and still learning the nuances of politics. A morass Aran was all too familiar with.

  “Malila already lobbies for it.” Aran lowered Narlifex from his shoulder and stared at the blade, the cracks along the upper third still visible along the dark metal. Those were scars the blade had chosen to keep. Useful scars. “She knows we could overwhelm the Confederacy.”

  “And why don’t we?” came a soft feminine voice from the barest hint of shadow that lay beside the throne. The shadow lengthened and grew, then became a purple-skinned woman who was nearly of a height with Xal’Aran.

  Xal’Nara wore a form-fitting suit of advanced spellarmor, the last vestige of her time among Ternus’s training programs. She hadn’t yet donned her helmet, and he still found her new appearance troubling.

  A pair of small horns had sprouted from Nara’s temples, identical to Malila’s. He didn’t need to share her bed to see the growing tail either, or the budding wings. Nara was transforming into whatever species her predecessor had been.

  Even her weapon, the legendary rifle Shakti, fit the demon side more than human. The weapon’s long black barrel had ended god and mortal alike, and had recently slain Nara’s tormentor, a god they’d not thought possible to kill. Aran didn’t even like thinking Talifax’s name, as if the mere memory could empower the deity. Perhaps it could.

  “Are you even listening?” Nara chided as she gave him a playful swat on the shoulder with her free hand. She tucked her ponytail inside her armor, then slid the helmet on with a hiss.

  “You asked why I don’t rise up and conquer the sector.” Aran knew that every other demon prince, excepting Kazon, wanted him to do exactly that. But he also knew that way lay ruin. “The Pantheon was at their strongest when they worked together. They built the Vagrant Fleet, and brought knowledge and life to the galaxy. Every time a single god tries to conquer, they are overwhelmed by every other god, because those gods know their very survival is at stake. If gods know that there’s a chance you can become their ally, they are much less likely to launch genocidal invasions.”

  “Possibly,” Nara allowed, turning that mirrored faceplate in his direction. “If we attempt to unify the sector we’d probably succeed. Voria would never allow it. Frit might see reason. Ternus could be cowed with a surgical strike against their leadership.”

  “And what about Yanthara?” Xal’Aran raised an eyebrow, and offered an amused smirk. “Are you really so eager to be on the other side of a spellcannon from Crewes? He’ll side with Voria. So will Bord and Kez.”

  Nara tensed at the last mention. He’d scored a hit there.

  “This isn’t just about politics for you,” Nara whispered, a hint of the woman he’d first met lurking in that haunted gaze. “This is about what we end up sacrificing.”

  “Some prices shouldn’t be paid.” Aran folded his arms, and stared down at the Mind of Xal, once more wondering what the ancient deity was doing. “I believe—”

  Xal’Aran trailed off as the Mind seized him. It wasn’t the first time his ability as a Hound of Xal had activated unbidden. Any time a significant being tasted of Xal’s magic he felt it, but this…this was on another level.

  “What is it?” Nara pressed as she moved to join him at the bony cliff. Below them rank upon demonic rank of foot soldiers had begun their morning drills, their brutish calls echoing up the canyons as they flung spells at each other.

  “I don’t know.�
� Aran peered into the radiance that was Xal’s mind, the utterly massive pool of void magic pulsing wildly, as it never had before. “Xal feels something. A renewal of an ancient connection. The best way I can put it is that Xal feels as if a long lost limb were suddenly reattached.”

  Aran closed his eyes, and felt his way along the tendril of void linking him to all beings that had ever tasted Xal. This new consciousness was ancient, and far older than he. Older than the Spellship, or Shaya.

  “It is a vessel,” Aran muttered aloud. “The Word of Xal. He is powerful and ancient, and awake for the first time in many, many millennia.”

  Nara stiffened, then wrapped one hand around Shakti’s stock, and placed the other along the weapon’s barrel. “How do you want to handle this?”

  Her tension bled into Aran as well. They both knew why. If Malila got her hands on a powerful enough vessel, then she could invade the Confederacy with or without Aran’s help. They needed to get there first.

  “Find the Word of Xal, and this Captain Jerek,” Aran commanded. “And do it quickly. Malila is also a hound. She felt this too. If we do not get there before her she could trigger a sector-wide war.”

  “Frit’s flame readers will already know about it too.” Nara shifted uncomfortably, and Aran didn’t need to see her face to know how conflicted she was. “I don’t want to fight her.”