Age of the Marcks

by Gregory Benson

  Just as Corin was beginning to feel surprised by the lack of a follow-up attack, a growing shriek from far above jolted his weary nerves. The shrieking multiplied and grew in intensity, but the sky was still not visible from the thick layer of ash and dust leftover from the sionic blast.

  “Commander, the Thraxon hive ship has released a substantial number of Sarak attack fighters that are en route for an air-to-surface assault,” a call from the science command station announced. The Sarak fighters were a highly agile, yet heavily armed, multi-purpose Thraxon attack force. The moment the distinctive roar from their Fathom drives poured into a system’s atmosphere, they conjured fear in the UMO colonies. They had been the mainstay Thraxon attack vehicle for strafing assaults on supply frigates, outposts, and cities since the start of the Thraxon War. From almost every direction above, mass propulsion thrusters turned thunderous as they drew down upon the surface. Their relentless foes were not yet visible from the thick cloud of dust that still lingered in the sky.

  “Form up for the next wave! Plexo, hit them with whatever you have left!” Corin struggled to stay optimistic and strong as the Vico Commander. Deep down, he knew that they were in no way prepared to repel this sort of attack in their present state, especially without a command ship. Still, he knew it was his duty, his responsibility, to give his legion every opportunity.

  His exhausted force brushed themselves off and gathered whatever fight remained to repress the incoming Thraxons. Corin turned toward Creedith. “It’s been a great pleasure serving with you, old friend. Casting every other honorable cause aside, for that reason alone, I have no regrets, no matter what the outcome is here today.”

  Creedith’s focus changed from the sky above to Corin. “No, sir, the honor is mine; your strength and compassion have restored my faith in your people. There is no other place I would rather be right now than fighting at your side.”

  Plexo activated the remaining surface-to-air defenses. Beams of orange light swooshed over their heads and disappeared into layers of dust. The blasts were looking to quench the attacking fighters, but most were short of their elusive targets. The clouds flashed with cracks of explosions in the sky above them.

  As his remaining force gathered around him, Corin drew a deep breath and held both hands toward the sky with his palms up. Snapping and crackling gave way to a transparent, blue dome positioned above the remains of his beloved UMO force. Just as the Saraks emerged from the dusty sky ready to unleash their deadly arsenal upon their targets below, they miraculously spun around in the opposite direction and back into the clouds. Their shrieking propulsion systems faded away into the sky above.

  Corin pulled back his protective shell in bewilderment. “They could have wiped us out in one or two passes; why did they turn away?”

  Creedith squinted his eyes toward the sky. “Marcks,” he replied.

  CHAPTER 1

  C rix pulled a roll of sweet creams from his sleeve pocket and popped a small bit into his mouth then secured it back in his pocket for later. As he stood and observed the peaceful countryside, his mature, chiseled face revealed his transition from boyhood into a man. He stared up in tranquility, noticing several leaves drifting slowly through the air as they fell from the great breatic trees.

  The scattering of light across his irises revealed his unique hazel eyes, which appeared enhanced with flecks of brown, light gold, and hints of green. His medium-brown hair tousled to the side as the occasional breeze glided through it.

  His droona beast nudged him with its velvet-soft muzzle, and Crix gave the beast a warm smile. He pulled the roll out again and snapped off a small piece to share. The beast lapped it up instantly.

  Sweet creams were the byproduct of the boiled skins from seacra pods. The bluish-green pods were considered a staple to sweetening food and used in Soorak cuisines among both Mendac and Andor cultures. Crix chuckled to himself, thinking of his droona’s love for this creamy snack. The beast continued to nudge its rider for more, but a sudden echo of thunder quaked overhead, which pulled both of their curiosities skyward. He hadn’t expected a storm this morning, and the war hadn’t had any action close to the local system in many years. The rumbling rolled in and out again and sounded as though it was directly above. As he squinted and searched the clear, cobalt sky for the source, he thought he spotted a flicker of silvery light.

  Crix leaped onto his droona beast—out of nowhere . . . boom! The sky directly above him flashed and exploded into a blazing white shockwave. His heart leaped from his chest, and his droona reared up, nearly throwing him to the grassy turf below. The sonic impact of the event was so powerful that he felt as if his clothes were nearly ripped from his body. His droona circled frantically, unable to regain its calm.

  Droonas, a domesticated, four-legged creature used for transportation within the Andor communities, were not easily spooked.

  Crix pulled back hard on the reigns to stop it, and then quickly cupped his hand over his forehead, trying to get a view through the blinding light above. The receding white glow revealed a black oval inside. The oval was so black that it gave the appearance of looking into a hole.

  Strange—he remained motionless while searching into the blackness for detail—it’s a ship.

  Enough features began seeping through the void to confirm his suspicions. The ship spun and shuddered in place for a few seconds before darting down into the horizon and disappearing past the cliffs that divided Troika and the wretched boglands of Drisal. All that remained in view was a white, glowing line that burnt away to a smoky trail. A distant thump let him know the ship had crashed into the boglands.

  His droona snarled and flinched, still startled from the continued commotion. Crix patted his hand against the bare midsection of the beast in reassurance to the animal that all was okay.

  The Drisal boglands were a vast stretch of low-lying land that provided a natural barrier between the outskirts of the Mendac and Andor territories. Commonly avoided by both species, Drisal had long been the source of folklore and ill fate. A dejected mix breed called Monoglades inhabited the boglands.

  Crix felt an unnerving pull within to investigate the strange ship, but he knew it was a full day’s ride on a droona. Besides, the danger of entering Drisal was real, as well as forbidden. Even the Marcks avoided that region as there was no political or strategic reason that would justify the use of resources in taming the lands. He wrestled with his emotions for a few minutes.

  Tirix was going to be furious with him for ditching the annexis game. Annexis was his preferred pastime and an excellent way to get his adrenaline fix. He played the forward position in a five-member team named Gears, which he formed with his best friend, Tirix. They were to play against TZ Five, their archrival, led by his childhood nemesis, Akhal.

  Akhal had hated Crix ever since they were children. He never accepted that a Mendac had the right to live amongst the Andors, and he thought that Crix’s presence there was polluting their culture. He always had this challenge growing up in Troika, but most of his neighbors and peers warmed up to him over the years. Yet, some Andors had never accepted Crix among them, and Akhal was one of the worst.

  Still, he could not get the ship out of his mind; for some reason, his feelings would not give him rest. It was more than his feelings. It was the orb . . . calling him to duty . . . awakening inside. He was not going to be able to keep it concealed much longer. Over the course of twenty years, the orb inside him had never felt like this before. It was pulling him toward Drisal . . .

  ***

  This unrelenting urge persisted, so he set forth. The great Breatic trees faded into the distance behind him. The narrow mountain wall that marked the edge of Troika was before him, and Drisal would be on the other side. He could see several small lines of smoke rising from the bogland.

  As nightfall set in, his droona started to feel cold and clammy. This was a sign that the thick-skinned, brown beast had become fatigued and would need to stop for a rest soon. He wanted
to enter the hostile region under cover of night, so he chose to leave his droona behind and continued on foot. The beast looked up at him one last time with its long snout as if it knew that he wasn’t going to be back anytime soon. Fortunately, he packed himself a meal to eat before his annexis game; he was going to need it.

  During the long hike, he began to think over his day. Haflinger, his keeper and the father figure who raised him, had him extracting minerals from the sabe field the day before, and observing the quiet Troika landscape was his favorite way to relax. His life growing up in Troika was more physically active than that of the normal, technologically pampered Mendac youth, and his physique prominently reflected this. Haflinger owned the rights to a section of the caina sabe fields.

  The sabe minerals were a critical component for Soorak’s orbital reactor stations. These minerals formed to a usable size annually, and the extractors, like Haflinger, were under pressure to make the outgoing shipment to Sectnine, a corporation that built and maintained the power grids, which supported the Mendac cities on Soorak.

  Crix knew how important this time of the year was and that the harvesting of the minerals sustained them for the rest of the year. Yet his mind kept wandering away from the yield to Haflinger’s comment the night before about “lifting the shroud.” When he had asked what Haflinger meant, Haflinger flared his nostrils and glared at Crix from the top of his eyelids. He’d felt as though questioning this comment had been disrespectful. Deep inside, he knew what it meant, and that Haflinger was aware of this. He also knew that Haflinger was beginning to suffer from poor health, and he was going to have to assume a larger part in taking care of his keeper’s affairs. Crix was uncomfortable with the future role that he must assume and where his place was going to be in this world moving forward. Throughout his life, he did as instructed since he was a child; he suppressed the power of the blue orb within him and kept it hidden from others.

  As he walked, he thought about the past.

  Twenty years had passed since the Marcks, a mechanized force, took over military control and eventually routed the Thraxon forces from the Oro System. Living among the predominantly rural lands of Troika, the Andors found themselves shielded from the war. The blue orb that merged with him shortly after his father’s death, and had dwelled inside him ever since, had always been like a mysterious friend that he could never play with, though he felt a longing to do so. It would whisper in his ear, cool him during the warm months, and warm him in the cool months, but forbidden, Crix could not allow it to emerge. If discovered, the Marck forces would descend upon the Andor populace with merciless fury to retrieve the legendary blue orb. The surviving Andors would likely be imprisoned for slave labor on Dispor, the torturous prison moon of Vaapur-9.

  Crix continued to hike toward the outer boundary of Drisal. He descended deeper into his memories of Haflinger. He had taught Crix the history of the Marcks, which had started during the devastating Thraxon War.

  The Emergency Preservation Initiative of Oro required secret confinement areas that would place the orbs of Cyos in permanent stasis. The same power that once united the Oro System was to be hidden and forgotten. The last Tolagons were to facilitate that final act. All armed forces and security were to be under Marck control until the day of restored peace.

  However, the system’s leaders did not trust each other with control of this military force due to fear of subjugation by one of their fellow neighbors. Therefore, a final initiative called together a multi-world team of scientific minds that developed an independent, functioning, mechanized force based on the design of Joric Placater. The Marcks became self-governing and sovereign via their central control system. Then, the ultimate decision to hand over the orbs and allow the Marcks to oversee the system became law.

  The blue orb of Soorak was lost, reportedly stolen, after the Marck handover. The yellow orb of Nathasia was destroyed during the Thraxon onslaught, and only the red and green orbs sat in their secret confinements as agreed. The Marcks had feverously combed the system in search of the lost blue orb but had never recovered it.

  It was difficult for Crix to grasp that he was directly involved in this story, even though he had never known any of the characters. They were just a series of fireside tales he had grown up hearing about throughout his childhood. Haflinger was confident the Marcks monitored the entire planet of Soorak from orbit and could detect the energy signature from the blue orb, thus his stern instructions to Crix concerning the use of this now-illicit power.

  Life was difficult for Crix as he could feel the orb urging him to take on the calling of the Tolagon. It was like a constant itch deep inside, which would only be satisfied through releasing its great power. Fortunately, his Andorian rearing gave him discipline and self-control, which had allowed him to ignore those nagging urges.

  Crix thought of his droona. He had never left one behind before. With some luck, he would be back before the beast wandered off too far. He continued to tread faster toward the boglands and into Drisal.

  Lost in his thoughts, he looked back at the peaceful landscape of Troika. He was wearing loose-fitted olive pants, and his top was a burgundy, padded undergarment from his annexis uniform. The padded top was his preference and was widely adopted by the Andor youth as a fashion statement. The traditionally reserved Andor populace recently saw its youngest generation take on more importance to the superficial, like sports and fashion. This had attributed to an inevitable bleed through from Mendac cultures that shared this world.

  Crix had to bring himself back to the present. Pushing himself forward over the steep, rocky range, he struggled his way up the fanged summit.

  The deceptive trek took a toll on his energy and time. He was aware that the dreaded, winged saber boars wandered the high, rocky regions. These vicious creatures used their leathery wings to swoop down upon their prey, slice them up with their razor-sharp tusks, and hungrily consume them. Crix would have to stay low and within the shadows to avoid their detection. He crouched down, hugging the shadow of a large boulder to remain unnoticed while he gained a panoramic view of Drisal.

  It was a shadowy landscape littered with egg-shaped bushes and long, thorny spines that twisted and curled throughout any vacant space not filled with scrubby underbrush. The horizon was so thick with these unwelcoming flesh rippers that the view was nothing more than a blur. Screams and howls of beasts echoed throughout the region; this caused his nerves to flinch with hesitation. It was as though he was witnessing an awakening from the depths of some great fissure, and from that place, the release of all the dreadful monsters that haunted children’s nightmares spilled out into the area below.

  Trying to keep his fears in check, he focused on looking for the direction of the crash. With the smoke lines no longer visible, he lost its exact position. He decided to use the last place he could recall seeing the smoke as his reference point. The crimson glow from the massive parent world of Oro in the skyline gave the boglands a ghostly shimmer and the illusion of movement scattering across the landscape.

  Crix rubbed his eyes to gain clarity. In the distance, he spotted a section of land that had the spiny brush pushed tightly together into a large mass with a plowed outstrip close by. A sudden feeling of anxiety clawed over him as he took a moment to think about what he was doing, though he felt a sense of relief when he observed that the crash site was not too far into the treacherous wild. He slowly emerged from the shadowy rocks and started to make his way down into the rugged terrain below.

  The radiance from Oro was so bright that as soon as he stepped out of the shadows, his skin gave off a reflective glow. Startled by his blatant appearance, he dove into a tall patch of dried grass. Close by, he heard a subdued growl followed by an overlap of snorting. The snorts became more persistent as they neared. Crix poked his head slowly over the top of the tall grass to catch a glimpse.

  Saber boars! At least five of them. Crix held his breath. The coarse-haired creatures had dark yellow tusks that stuck out al
most a meter from their lower jaws. Realizing that the tenacious beasts had seen him, he jumped to his feet and sprinted down to the steep cliff nearby, hoping to find an overhang.

  He reached the edge of the cliff and found a straight drop, at least a hundred meters, to the next ledge down. The boars spread out and surrounded him. They grunted and snorted faster in anticipation of their prey. Their eyes looked like cavities filled with blood and froth glopped from their jaws. They appeared focused, as though they were deciding on what part of him they would consume first before going in for the kill. Their skin-clad wings fluttered with anticipation, and the smallest of the group squatted down in a careful approach with his tusks pointed in a slightly downward angle.

  Crix stepped back and stumbled over a heavy, citron green vine. He then saw the creeping vines from another bush located at the edge of the cliff, snaking down the overhang like long, crooked fingers. Without a second thought, he dropped down and grabbed a vine, allowing it to slide through his hands in an attempt to clear the ledge. His hands burned from the friction as he stopped near the end of the creeping plant’s branches. He dangled wildly, unable to find a place to get a solid foothold. Loose rocks broke away under his feet and clacked all the way down the cliff’s edge; soon, his hands and arms burned with fatigue.

  Startled by fluttering noises above, he almost released the vine from his grasp. A terrible scream cried out from directly behind him, and he became aware that his perilous situation has somehow worsened. He looked back and saw a flying saber boar there to greet him. It was in an attack position and moving fast.

  Crix quickly kicked away from a protruding rock and swung himself to the side. The boar tried to make a last-minute adjustment but smashed its tusks up against the side of the cliff. He took this precious second, while the boar was stunned from the impact, and jumped onto its back. The wild beast shrieked so loud that a deafening ring poured into Crix’s ears. It continued the earsplitting shriek as it whipped its head around violently, trying to get a bite or tusk into him. He gripped tightly to its neck with his fingers, digging hard into its tough hide. He locked his legs around the boar’s back as it soared downward out of control. Assuming that the creature was no longer able to keep flight with him on its back, he snuggled in as close as he could and braced for impact and hoped that the boar took the brunt of the crash.