The Embryo of the Star

by Elberto V Badon

  “There! You drink as much as you can . . . just tell me, if that is not enough you bastard! Tie him to the foot of the legendary statue of Mars, the god of brave kings and emirs!” the emir ordered.

  “Ammaron! The course of death will come your way! The day of reckoning is coming! Everything in this world is subject to change, including your tyranny! This kingdom belongs to my people. You’ve fooled them with your juicy promises to modernize their standard of living. But what did you do? You have exploited them under the heat of the scorching sun!" The young Kubinak continued his attack on the angered emir. “If only some of the officers didn't cooperate with your coup d’état, perhaps my people wouldn’t experience their miserable fate!"

  “You shut the mouth of that dirty bastard! He’ll be tried tomorrow for inciting the people to rebellion! I’d prefer the robots till the land rather than have a human working force like these people who are inefficient and demanding! The robot didn’t ask for water or food; they go on working day and night!”

  “Now, visitors, you wanna witness what is goin' on now On the Earth? . . . Bruhz, show them the wide screen.” The emit was smiling while viewing live coverage of the Earth. “See? In a matter of a few hours the Earth shall perish from the solar system, including yourselves! Your cadavers will be good organic fertilizer!” The emit laughed very loud and left.

  “What shall we do now, Mark?” Lady Khinna asked. “We’re helpless.”

  “We must do something to get out of this confinement,” Mark replied.

  On the Earth, the emperor had made a broadcast: “To all citizens of the Earth, I regret to announce that the worst has finally come. In spite of the unconfirmed report of the Stargeon’s success, kudos to the late Mark Gouch for his brilliant theory that may bail- out our planet, unfortunately time is running out. . .. For the last hour of our lives, I’ll appeal to everybody to join in praying to the heavenly supernatural being . . . whoever He is . . . wherever He is . . . to save our planet.”

  When the people heard the desperate appeal of the emperor, at that very moment mass hysteria occurred. The screaming and crying of children and adults reverberated inside the Starshield. Some opted to get out of the shelter, and the scramble for the available spaceships ensued. Someone approached Professor Kalavich. “Sir, will you allow me to fly with the reserved Spaceship? I’ll challenge the incoming Omega bomb.”

  “Yes, you’re very much welcome,” the professor replied immediately. “We need some more volunteers. because the deadly bomb has gotten away from our forward defense."

  The man then squatted on the floor and faced in the direction of the East. He tied a white headband with a Japanese red sun on and cried, “Banzai! Nippon!” while raising his fist.

  The people’s commotion ceased for a moment as they watched the man doing some ritual acts. The man then hopped into the spaceship fully loaded with powerful explosives.

  “He is right," the professor told his colleague. “Only a powerful explosive could destroy that bomb. We made a mistake in our defense system; we considered only the laser beams as our missile killer; we thought the antiballistic missiles were already obsolete.”

  The Omega projectile was approaching the Earth at a sharp tangential orbit. The people were seriously watching the Japanese spaceship clinging to the giant missile that had entered the Earth’s exosphere. What the people had witnessed next was the sudden explosion at the Earth’s outermost barrier.

  “He is a kamikaze fighter!" someone shouted. “He has committed suicide . . . what a patriotic fate he has met."

  But to their dismay the Omega missile was still heading towards the Earth’s next atmospheric layer, the ionosphere, though they had some consolation because the missile’s outer shell had disappeared, its size reduced by a quarter, prompting the professor to conclude that the incoming super-bomb was not, after all, invincible.

  Then another man approached the professor.

  “Yes, you can fly," the professor acknowledged the Caucasian gentleman’s request.

  The man then dressed himself up in an old Spanish matador outfit and faced the crowd and said, “Señores y Señoras, in the old days my ancestors risked their lives fighting the untamed bull just to please their beautiful señoritas. How much more if our planet is in dire needs of our services . . . Viva-a-a-ah España!"

  The people cheered at the man’s touching rhetoric. Then a pretty Hispanic senorita threw a bunch of red roses to the man.

  The man responded by throwing a wild kiss to the young lady and exclaiming, “016!”

  The people were again expecting that the man would explode his spaceship on the Omega bomb. They were not mistaken, as the spaceship clung to the blazing missile and exploded after five minutes. A sudden silence occupied the Starshield’s surroundings. The people were again disappointed, because the bomb was still closing in on the Earth’s mesosphere. To add further to the Earthlings’ dismay were the incoming heavily escorted Omega missiles spotted by the Observatory Station, several miles away from the Earth. The people looked around, waiting for someone who would volunteer to destroy the destructive bomb.

  A man who looked like an Asian answered their call. The slow-moving man faced the cheering Earthling crowd and bid them farewell. He made the sign of the cross before he boarded the spaceship heavily loaded with an atom bomb. The people were anxiously watching the human antimissile fast approaching the Omega bomb, which exposed its forward deep-penetrating ‘device.

  “Oh, c’mon, pull the trigger, man!” a young girl shouted, but the new volunteer didn’t do what the people were expecting him to do but just bowed his head.

  “You brown monkey! Press that button before it’s too late!” someone exclaimed. “I should have taken your place, you…son of a bitch!”

  “He is praying,” someone said.

  The people had become desperate at the unfavorable behavior of the third volunteer. The feared bomb continued its descending orbit and it would just take few hours to enter the Earth's next-to-the-last atmospheric layer, the stratosphere.

  “It’s too late now to send another suicidal human bomb; the Omega bomb may soon plummet to the Earth’s troposphere, and there’s no way to stop it," the concerned professor said.

  In the city of Green Meadow, the Kuralians were looking for some way out of the emir’s tricky dragnet.

  “If there’s anybody could slip away and manage to get into our spaceships, perhaps we’d have a good chance for survival," the young Kuralian skipper said.

  “This glass wall is very stable . . . our laser can’t even crack it,” one Kuralian fighter said.

  The thick glass wall moved closer toward their position from both sides and was bound to flatten them all.

  In the video screen the emir echoed, “Mark Couch! . . . Lady Khinna! . . . Please listen to what I say. In a matter of a few hours the Earth’s debris shall pollute the solar system!”

  A platoon of Martian sentries had lined up in front of the two, fully armed.

  “Mark, it’s a massacre!" Lady Khinna shouted. “Everybody draw your handguns!”

  The Martian sentries began shooting at them. The Kuralians responded by firing their laser pistols. The Martians withdrew when they lost half a dozen men. On the Kuralian side they lost three men.

  Hey! Let’s try to push the glass wall,” Lady Khinna suggested.

  They stepped back when the mesh wire almost electrocuted them. '

  “Toxic gas! Everybody drop to a low level!” Mark exclaimed.

  “Gosh! They wanna gas us all to death,” Lady Khinna said.

  The poisoned gas had begun to suffocate them. Lady Khinna switched on her wristwatch and monitored their spaceships. “Oh, no! They’ve cannibalized our spaceships!"

  Then Mark tried to make contact with his spaceship while coughing. “There, Sniffer is responding to my signal. C'mon, Sniffer!"

  They saw Sniffer viewing an animal race on the video screen.

  The husky was wearing headphones and a pair
of eyeglasses while sitting in the armchair with a cup of flux.

  “Sniffer!” Mark called his pet several times.

  The husky’s ears flicked, and he looked around, tail wagging. “Stand up, Sniffer . . . push the red button to your right. C’mon . . . pull the lever to your left . . . do it slowly,” Mark commanded his pet.

  “It’s working, Mark!” the joyful young lady shouted.

  Then the Martian sentries noticed the moving Kuralian spaceship and shot the devil-fish-shaped spacecraft, but it returned the fire. The sentries had to keep on firing their laser guns and others had tried to approach from the rear, but the mechanical tail whipped them, throwing them to the rafters. The Martians had called for the services of their secret weapon: a giant manned mechanical squid. The giant cattle fish robot charged the Kuralian spaceship, firing its powerful laser beams from its ten wagging arms. The devil fish craft fired back with fury, but the mechanical squid released a thick black smoke and darkened the battle scene. Mark, who was in control by remote, lost the mechanical squid. He didn't notice that it was leeching on the back of their spaceship, wobbling up and down, and its tentacles began to glow, slowly melting the back of the Kuralian spaceship.

  The mechanical squid lifted the devil fish while its head was rotating at a tremendous velocity, to the delight of the Martian sentries. Sniffer had become dizzy due to the fast spinning. Mark noticed protruding tentacles, then commanded his pet to pull the tail’s control arm. The mechanical tail then whipped the leeching mechanical squid, but to no avail. Mark changed his strategy; he commanded Sniffer to get the mechanical tail tied around the mechanical squid’s body and squeeze it tight. The mechanical squid was slowly loosening its super adhesive grip. A blackish fluid came out of it. With the devil fish's mechanical tail at full strength, the mechanical squid was thrown several yards away. Without the command of Mark, the husky fired double bladed laser sword and with an instinct for overkill destroyed the mechanical squid in ruthless vengeance.

  The victorious husky had come to their rescue. The mechanical tail smashed the thick transparent glass wall several times until finally it crumbled to the marble floor. Mark pulled Lady Khinna out of danger. The trapped Kuralians eluded death by a split second. Mark’s breast was bleeding, hit by a sharp edge of the broken glass.

  The battle of laser beams had begun. Mark set Kubinak free by firing a laser pistol at the latter’s handcuff. Kubinak rushed in the direction of the cell, grasped the royal guard that manned the stockade, and twisted his neck. The charismatic leader then led the inmates to freedom and shouted, “Mars is free!” His men responded by calling for a jihad. Civil strife spread throughout the city of Green Meadow like wildfire. The Martian insurgents fought the Martian royal guards led by Capt. Voltaire Visrogh. The insurgents assembled their prefabricated catapults and used them to throw their men on the heavily fortified high walls where Emir Ammaron was watching the hundred missiles cruising toward the Earth.

  They used a Basque’s cesta in throwing the explosive balls that were being used during the bloody game They successfully knocked out the tower sentries and eliminated some snipers. The combined forces of the Martian peasants and the Kuralian fighters almost overran the Martian elite guard, but the Martian captain immediately called for reinforcement from the Martian regular army. The insurgents' objective of capturing the clandestine space control station was derailed when they noticed the responding soldiers in great numbers come, that could overwhelm them in a matter of an hour of fighting. The fresh troops were fully equipped with high-powered laser weapons, backed up by armored carriers and super tanks.

  The insurgents’ leader sensed danger. “We’d almost won the battle, if only this regular army didn’t arrive . . . and now there’s no turning back or surrender," the charismatic leader told his men.

  The insurgents tied their arms with black cloth strips and shouted, “Allah-h-h-h-h, O Akhbar-r-r!" their deafening call echoing throughout the city.

  Lady Khinna ordered her men to man their spaceships, but it was too late, because the surging army was closing in on their position. The fearless Kuralian leader made her final gambit. “Cover me!” she shouted, then rushed to her spaceship with the Kuralian fighters supporting her. Lady Khinna managed to board her spaceship, then rushed to the computer base and fed the Martian regular army features into it and pressed the red button.

  “What the hell is that?" the insurgent who was trying to strike his explosive ball wondered. Because what they saw were thousands of devil fish Microfighters chasing the regular army firing the tiny line of laser beams enough to knock out any ordinary mortal. The insurgents were very much amazed at the performance of their micro allies. The Kuralians then boarded their spaceships and knocked out the demoralized armored carriers and the super tanks.

  The Martian captain had tried to elude arrest, but the furious insurgents had reached his spaceship and pulled him away. They hogtied the arrogant elite guard chief and spread his arms against the wall. One insurgent inserted a Basque’s cesta into his arm and said, “You remember how fatal the effects of this ball are, Captain?" The vanquished captain didn’t face his captor. The man then stepped backward about fifty yards and swung the cesta filled with the explosive ball toward the captain. The ball exploded, but missing the captain by three yards. The insurgents went wild, their vindictive hearts on cloud nine.

  “Let me try, Ahmad; we’ll see if he has the nine lives of a cat." A man then struck the explosive ball. It again missed the captain, but the splinters hurt his left arm and face. Many a insurgents had queued up for their chance to express their long ears of hatred toward their captive.

  “Please stop this merciless killing; let’s give our captives a chance to defend themselves in court, to be chaired by foreign judges,” Kubinak urged his victorious men.

  In the clandestine space control station another drama had occurred. The besieged emir was being pinned by Mark against his computer bank, but the emir was able to grab Lady Khinna and said, “Don’t come nearer; or this blade shall pierce her throat!"

  Mark stepped back, very furious. “You…. cruel bastard! . . . Set her free! Let’s fight one on one; may the best man win!”

  “I’m not that foolish, Mark; I know you still need me alive, because your people’s lives are in my hand!”

  Then someone barged through the doorway. "At last I found you, Ammaron!” the young Kubinak exclaimed. “The wheels of misfortune are now on your side . . . I told you that the day of deliverance would come!”

  “This game is not meant to be easy, Kubinak . . . because 'I’ve still my last ace. You’ve got to eliminate that Earthling first,” pointing at Mark, “before we can face each other," the beleaguered emir stressed.

  “Don’t try to trick me, Ammaron, because I don’t have any business with the Earthling!” the enraged leader replied.

  “You don't know what's goin’ on, Kubinak," the emir replied. “Mark, I know that you’re very much concerned with the salvation of your planet. I think we could make a compromise, that is, I shall release her, provided you will let her leave Mars together with her spaceships. Once this condition shall be met. then it’s time for me to divert the Omega bomb and the hundred sparrow missiles.”

  “Yes, you can settle your dispute with the Earthlings once your soul leaves you for hell!” Kubinak interrupted. “Because at this very moment I’ll be your final executioner!” Kubinak aimed his service laser gun at the emir.

  “Sniffer! Please help me!" Lady Khinna exclaimed.

  “C’mon! Fire your gun, Kubinak” the besieged emir shouted and swung his hostage’s body toward Kubinak.

  The situation had become very tense and complicated. But out of nowhere a surging husky leaped with all his strength and planted his jaws on the Martian monarch’s wrist. The desperate emir loosened his grip on his hostage as he fell. Kubinak then rushed to the fallen emir.

  “And now, Ammaron, this is the end of your tyranny!” Kubinak hoisted his arm with a laser sa
ber, ready to kill the fallen monarch.

  “Hold it, Kubinak! We need the emir alive.” Lady Khinna thrust her body in front of the furious executioner.

  “The emir has to answer for the crimes he has committed against my people,” Mark said. Don’t believe them, Kubinak! I didn’t commit any crime against the Earthlings! It’s their planet that will collide with ours that ignited all this trouble!”

  “That allegation needs to be proven. My main concern now is your accountability for the wrongdoings you’ve committed against my people!”

  “All right, you win, Kubinak, but please let him first deviate those missiles,” Mark conceded. “You’ve got nothin’ to fear, man; I give you my word.”

  “Don’t believe them, Kubinak! They just want to mislead you; their situation is hopeless!”

  “Hey, Kubinak, please let the emir show us what’s goin’ on in the Earth," Lady Khinna suggested.

  Then the wide-screen space watcher showed the situation on the Earth. Kubinak's eyes grew big upon seeing people in pandemonium, children overrun by the stampedes of people fighting to board the spaceships first.

  “Now, Kubinak, maybe you don’t want this thing to happen with your own people,” Lady Khinna said.

  “Who are you, lady?" Kubinak asked. “Did you come to our planet to make us slaves again? Don’t make a mistake of undermining the strength of our newfound solidarity; you can defeat us only over our dead bodies! "

  “We didn’t come here as your colonizers . . . rather as your faithful friends . . . and we don’t have any intention to stay. You’re a free man now. You can choose your own destiny, and if you need any assistance from us we are ready to help. My men will leave this planet as soon as they’ve repaired our cannibalized spaceships. In the meantime, you may disarm them and they shall be in your custody. I’ll relinquish to you the whole command. Maybe we ’ve already compromised ourselves in your favor," Lady Khinna stressed.