Storm Trooper with Maglight
Ottawa
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“On the last moon of the Year of Two Eclipses,” my father foretold one morning, his eyes haunted with fear, “the Child Takers will return.”
We knew of the Child Takers from ancient campfire tales, though no one in my tribe was old enough to remember them firsthand. They had come several times before, descending from the stars upon great flying boats that burned whole swaths of jungle as they landed. Every time, our people tried to fight back. Every time, our people were butchered, and their children taken from them, never to be seen again. The Child Takers’ cruelty knew no bounds. Legends said that they laughed as they took babies from their wailing mothers’ arms, and that they delighted in torturing anyone who defied them. Then, when their boats were full of young captives, they returned to the skies, leaving terrified survivors behind. Their dark deeds became stories, and the generations that followed came to believe they were just that – stories.
Unlike his brothers and sisters, my father never stopped believing in these stories as he grew older. He saw things in his dreams. Things that came true, like the death of his father on a hunt, the sex of his wife’s future children, and the eruption of the Black Mountain. The wise men of the Imperium would call him a psyker, but to my simple tribespeople, he was a prophet blessed by the Emperor. When he foretold the return of the Child Takers, my tribe believed him without hesitation, and swore to be prepared.
My father was not satisfied. We had to tell others, he said. We had to unite all nine tribes we knew, even our old foes the Man Eaters and the Painted Faces. Only with them could we stand a chance against our common nemesis. Many of us thought such a truce was impossible. But my father was a man of formidable charisma and determination. For months he preached of the holy visions sent to him by the Emperor Beyond the Stars, and such were his authority and confidence that few doubted him. Before the year was out, the nine tribes were now one.
And then we began to prepare for war. Our women and children worked day and night to make arrows and spears. Our hunters ventured into the deepest reaches of the jungle to find the deadliest poisons known to our medicine men. Our shamans sacrificed nine times nine beasts to beseech the Emperor’s holy favour. I did my part too. I was young then – my cheeks were just covering with fuzz – and when came the time to prove to the elders that I had become a grown man, I ventured into the Forbidden Cave and slew the nameless abomination that resided there. From its tusks and bones we carved weapons, from its nerves we strung bows, from its hide we made armor and war drums, and in its venom we dipped our arrowheads. We formed ambush parties and lay in wait for our foes, wherever and whenever they may set foot.
By the wet season, we thought we were ready to face the Child Takers.
We were fools.
Their arrival, on the first rainy night after the full moon, was a sight out of a nightmare. Each of their boats belched fire and flew upon black wings that looked sharp enough to cleave through bone. Our arrows and spears bounced uselessly off the dreadful vehicles as they landed. The flying boats shot back, tearing the night asunder with beams of purple fire, and killed many great warriors before they even bloodied their spears. Then the Child Takers themselves emerged in the rain, moving with an almost otherworldly grace as they leveled their fire-sticks at us and drew their blades. Our men roared in defiance, and true battle was joined.
We killed many. I remember how elated I was to see a Child Taker bleed and collapse as I drove my spear into his chest, proof that our ancient foes were not shadows or spirits as our legends said, but living beings with a heart that could be pierced. I knelt by my fallen opponent, removed his helmet and gazed upon a face that was almost human – albeit scrawny and sickly pale, with long pointy ears and merciless black eyes that glared at me in cold hatred until the spark of life went out of them. I laughed as I stood up and joined the fray again.
Yet despite our bravery and ferocity, our weapons were no match for the Child Takers’ witchcraft and preternatural speed. Soon the battle turned against us, until the ground was littered with three tribesman bodies for every slain Child Taker. The bloodied leader of my ambush party, knowing his end was nigh, ordered me to run back to my tribe and tell the tale of this defeat. As I fled through the forest with the rain pounding on my face, I heard behind me the agonised screams of the captives that the Child Takers had caught alive.
I returned to my tribe and told them of our defeat. Far from losing hope, my father declared that we must keep fighting, for the Emperor’s salvation would come very soon and drive the Child Takers from our skies. I am ashamed to say I did not believe him. He was right once again, of course, but he did not live to see it – or to hear me apologise for doubting his holy visions. He died bravely three days later at the battle of Howling Gorge, cut down by the fire of a flying boat as he rained down arrow after arrow into the enemy’s raiding party.
In our darkest hour, when our people stood on the brink of extinction, the help my father had promised finally arrived. They came from above the clouds upon silver wings, guns blazing, and faced the Child Takers in a great sky battle that shook both heaven and earth. Dozens of flying boats, some black and some silver, went down in flames all around us. Most of my people ran for the caves, but I remained perched on top of a tree, unable to take my gaze away from what I could only describe, at the time, as a clash between gods.
A silver boat crash-landed and came to a grinding halt at the foot of my tree. Its hull was riddled with holes and most of the upside had been torn off, revealing its occupant. I hurried down the tree and saw that the sky warrior was a human being, just like me – and that he was badly wounded, but alive. His sole remaining eye turned towards me as I came nearer.
“Quick, boy, get me out of here,” he said. He spoke the Emperor’s language, the one my tribe used during worship, though his accent and pronunciation were almost unintelligible to me. “Man the guns. I can’t do it myself.” He held up his broken wrist.
I lifted the sky warrior’s bloodied body out of the seat and sat in his place in the boat, feeling unworthy of such an honour. It took him a while to teach me how to use the guns, for such weapons looked like sorcery to me. But I did as I was told, turned my guns skywards and opened fire. I shot down two of the Child Takers’ boats – two more than the nine tribes’ combined bows and spears had brought down since the start of the invasion.
By dusk, the Child Takers were defeated, their few remaining boats flying away with our saviors chasing after them. I struggled out of the broken boat and slumped to the ground in exhaustion, as proud as when I had slain the abomination of Forbidden Cave.
“Are you the Emperor?” I asked the wounded man beside me.
Amusement gleamed in the man’s lone eye. “No, just one of His humble servants. Airman Ramiro Hask, First Squadron, Ninth Fighter Wing of the Elysian Space Navy.”
I frowned. Though we spoke the same language, most of his words made little sense to me. “But you can fly,” I said.
“It’s a skill I was taught,” he replied. “If you learned to climb trees and shoot aircraft guns, you could learn to fly, too.”
“Then teach me.”
The man chuckled, then grimaced from the pain of his wounds. “It takes years, boy. Many years for one like you, born on a feral world.”
“I want to fly,” I insisted fiercely, my destiny now clear before me. “I want to kill Child Takers. I want to save other tribes like you saved mine.”
“Tell you what,” said the man, his amusement turning to what looked like respect. “My wing mates are supposed to meet at the top of the volcano near here for liftoff, after we’ve rid this world of the Eldar pirates. If you patch me up and help me get there within two days, I’ll take you to Elysia in our starship. There you’ll go to a school where they’ll teach you to fly.”
So I took him to the Black Mountain.
As it turned out, Airman Ramiro and his leaders had no real intent to take me in. They thanked me for my help and gave me some of their technological baubles, hoping to satisfy me. But I was young and stubborn, and would not be deterred. I snuck into their great boat they called a starship, silent as a hunter tracking prey, and I hid in the holds. They were halfway to Elysia when they found me, and by then, they could not turn back. They had me toil in the lower decks to earn my keep, and though it was hard work, I never complained. I could tell Ramiro was impressed with me.
Ramiro would never fly again, for even the Imperium’s medicine could not fully repair his broken body. But he used some of his retirement money to send me to flight school. He warned me it could take “a feral lad” like me at least four or five years to become a pilot.
I made it in two.
As I stand before you, fellow graduates of the Elysian Space Academy, I am Airman Wreggen, call sign ‘Savage’, Third Squadron, Sixth Fighter Wing of the Elysian Space Navy.
And Emperor willing, all Child Takers in this galaxy will come to fear my name.
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