The Dragon of No Words

Chapter 1

Give contacts, get contacted. Offer deals, haggle, make profit.

Rinse and repeat.... For the next ten years....

Emrys was eighteen when he took over the arms dealing department of his father's large illegal sales empire. It was the most sought after of all the departments; firearms is and always will be popular, especially among people hungry for power. The buyers were hardly ever vary, but the goods he got his hands on and had the pleasure to sell, in the last three years at least, was always changing. The traditional firearms were starting to lose demands as the market's interest shifted to a new, more mysterious weapons not of this world, or of the galaxy, for that matter.

This day was an especially intriguing day. For the first time since the rise of its existence over a decade ago, his father finally got his hands on one of the latest weapon trends. He wasn't even sure if calling it a weapon was appropriate. He had told Emrys to raise the price, "make them bid," he'd told him. Emrys could only obey.

His father brought the weapon himself, carrying it with one of his less distinct ships, but one of his fastest. The old coot was a modern pirate; his swashbuckling includes a lot of shooting rather than the more fantasized swordplay as depicted in films, but the loss of the fantasy charm made him more formidable in the eyes of both criminal syndicates and authorities alike. Emrys chose to stay away from sea life, claiming not having the strength to withstand seasickness, that's why he stayed with the on-land arms dealing.

"So where did you get it this time?" he asked his father, a ragged seventy-year-old that somehow was still standing straight. Despite being a foot shorter, the old man was more stocked than the lean musculature Emrys has.

"An American cargo ship, authorized by the government!" he chortled, eyes gleaming as he watched the stolen cargo picked up by the crane. "But that's not the best part! Look at this log." He shoved a clear folder to his son's chest with enough strength to make him grunt at the blunt impact to his chest.

Emrys studied the folder briefly; it was almost filled to the brim, save for five empty slots. While waiting for the crane to lower the steel cargo, he scanned the files page by page. The first few pages were just permission slips and the like. The rest were the same: shipment logs with multiple entries, meaning whatever the weapon is had been shipped to multiple places before. Immediately, on the first file, he was dumbstruck. The first entry of shipment was almost eight years ago! Not only that, but the origin was not even from Earth!

"Ainon Deis?! That's—that's not even from the same star system! Dad, how the fuck did you get your hands on this?"

"Not easy, but I was just really lucky I got someone from the inside to help me." Then he wrapped his wrinkly but muscled arm around his son. "My informant told me, boy, that this is apparently one of the special cases. And by 'special', I mean it's wild, stubborn, hard to control, but the strength is promising. That's why it keeps moving to different hands. 'Cuz nobody wants it!"

"Then why do you?" Emrys asked, now stricken with worry.

"Because this guy can save my business. Look, kid," this time he turned to look Emrys in the face, "I've lost millions of Euros because of these damn monsters keep popping up wherever my 'shop' is! You lost hundreds of thousands because your customers got eaten alive by those motherfuckers, didn't you? We need a safety measure, kid! And this is it!"

The cargo landed with a heavy metallic thud, sending violent rattles to Emrys' bones. It was a regular-sized cargo, but judging from how it sounded when landed, it seemed like less than half of it was filled. The odd sound only increased his curiosity; he had only heard about it, he never expected it to be legit. He had never seen one before, not even his richest business rivals got their hands on one of these. At least, not that he was aware of.