[scifan] plantation 03 - shadow empire

by Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

  “Enjoy,” I whisper as I pass Zoe on my way out.

  *

  THEO MESSES AROUND with the settings on the communication device we will use to send out a message to the aliens in Plantation-8. He’s been toying with it for almost two hours and he’s still not certain he got it right. The main issue being we need to make sure the signal is untraceable. It’s not like him to second-guess his skills but protecting the underground rebel base is of primary importance.

  The Lab is quiet despite the fact that there are more than twenty people in here. I credit their presence to boredom since there’s not much to do, especially among the Exodus L21 fighters. Still, it amazes me that they’d rather stay here, quiet and still, instead of, well, anything really.

  I move away to the farthest corner of the room. I sit right behind a counter displaying vials and tubes of different colors and take out my touchpad.

  I search through the image database until I find a picture that I uploaded of Tobi in his crib. He has a big smile on his face. He’s happy. I have to preserve that happiness for him. Maybe life can be beautiful and peaceful some day if I do my part now.

  I wipe the tears from my eyes and place my lips on the screen to kiss the image of my wonderful baby boy who knows nothing of the world except that he is loved. Which is only fair because he has asked for nothing else.

  “It’s done,” Theo announces. “Freya, where did you go?”

  I get up and put the touchpad away. “I’m here,” I say. “All ready to go?”

  “Yes, it’s your turn now,” Theo says.

  “What will you put in the message?” Finn says.

  “It will be short and simple: I’m on Earth. Will go live tomorrow at 10:00 am. Make sure you’re online.”

  “That’s it?” Theo asks.

  “That’s it. Send it.”

  *

  “WHAT IS GOING ON?” Gritu asks when I close the door. It’s no surprise that he and Malzod would be freaked out once inside my room but I can’t think of a quieter place to have a chat and ask them to do what I need them to do. Which they will not like one bit.

  “It’s about what Zolkon said,” I start. “He knows how I can get the Dark Legion on my side. And I can’t do it without your help.”

  “The Dark Legion? Are you sure that’s what he said?” Gritu says. It doesn’t take a psychic to see that he is beyond perplexed.

  “What do you need us to do?” Malzod says.

  “I need you to bring their leader to me,” I say.

  Gritu and Malzod don’t react at first. They just stare at me and I fear that I have put them into a state of shock.

  “Kroll?” Gritu says finally.

  “Yes.”

  “You must be out of your mind,” Malzod says.

  “It’s the only way,” I insist.

  “Do you even know what Kroll is?” Gritu says. “He’s more than human, more than Sliman, more than alien. He’s more like a natural force. Nobody can get near him if he doesn’t allow it.”

  “And if you do get near him, you’re dead already if you try to do anything other than what is expected,” Malzod adds.

  “You are rebels,” I say. “Do you believe in our cause?”

  “Yes, of course,” Gritu says. “But trying to abduct Kroll will fail and then backfire. It’s not a viable option.”

  “I know I’m asking for a lot, but I need this. We need this.”

  The door opens and Damian waltzes in the room. “You are asking too much,” he says, “but when has that ever stopped you?”

  “Damian,” I say shocked to see him.

  “These two would quickly have their heads pulled off by Kroll’s bare hands,” Damian says angering Malzod. “Though he might die of laughter after such a feeble attempt.”

  “You’ve been eavesdropping,” I say.

  “I consider that your fault,” Damian says. “Secrets should be whispered.”

  It would have been nice if when the aliens reprogrammed him, they had removed more of the condescending jerk gene.

  “And you’re the man for the job?” I ask.

  Gritu goes red at my words. “You can’t possibly be considering this. He’s not ready, Freya. Look at him, he’s so pleased with himself. He’s leading his own crusade and he doesn’t care about consequences.”

  I turn my gaze from Gritu back to Damian. “What is it that you think you can do?”

  “Just have these two get me near Kroll and I will do the rest.”

  “Have you ever seen Kroll? Or even heard of him?” Malzod asks Damian.

  Damian steps up to Malzod. “A better question would be, has he heard of me? Because if he had, he’d be scared shitless.”

  “He’s obviously out of his mind,” Gritu says.

  “You just get me close and I’ll get Kroll and you two will get to keep your heads, not that they have been of much use to you.”

  “This is absurd,” Gritu says.

  I consider Gritu’s frustration. “This whole world’s absurd, Gritu.”

  “Explain to them I would be saving their lives,” Damian says.

  “I don’t know, Damian,” I say searching my heart and mind.

  “What? You don’t trust me?” he says.

  “Have you given me reason recently?”

  Now he hesitates and searches his own heart and mind. “I am here, Freya. I will pay with my life if I am wrong.”

  “That’s very generous of you,” I say, “but I’m not so sure you value your life as much as I do. Give me your word that I won’t regret this.”

  “You have my word,” he says sincerely.

  Gritu and Malzod shift their weight back-and-forth from one foot to the other, something they do when they’re uncomfortable.

  “I depend on you, Gritu” I say. “You too, Malzod. Take him as far as you can without risking yourselves. Damian will do the rest.”

  Damian hits me with a smile I haven’t seen on his face in a long, long time. I immediately don’t want to risk his life, but he needs this for some reason. I won’t deny him. Every minute he is away will be torture. I always need to know he is alive and well because he has become a part of me.

  “Remember, Damian,” I say. “We need Kroll alive.”

  13

  I try not to think about the fact that I haven’t heard from Damian. He’s been gone for fifteen hours. I try to stay calm and trust in him. My life and the lives of thousands of others depend upon it.

  It’s not like I have nothing to do. I have to go online and talk to the aliens on camera. A dreaded prospect at best.

  “Where do you want me to sit?” I ask Theo who has had enough time to work out all the schematics.

  “We will do this outside,” he says. “And you will have to use the receptor to shield our position. Can you do that while talking?”

  I nod. I’ve been testing my ability to scramble signals all morning. It’s an easy trick for me. I’m more worried about my acting. It’s similar to lying and it’s well documented I’m a lousy liar.

  “Excellent. Then we will be just fine,” Theo says.

  I know what he’s trying to do. He wants to build my confidence. Our practice tapings have been atrocious. I don’t have the heart to tell him that we are a long way from ever being fine, even if our broadcast goes well.

  The fighters from Exodus L21 help us move all the equipment needed outside. Theo sets me down on a rock and adjusts the camera position. He uses a filter to distort the image and that includes my face. He wants everything to be a bit on the blurry side.

  Everybody gets behind Theo as he tries to establish a connection. The receptor in my hand has cast an invisible protective shield around us that will keep detectors and sensors from locating us.

  The signal comes through. Theo has set up a monitor just for me. It’s not a shock to see a partially cloaked alien face come up on the screen. That much I expected. The shock comes from the fact that he has a human girl right next to him. The girl can’t be over fifteen. />
  “Greetings, Freya,” the girl says. Her voice is melodic but lacks the intimacy of human speech. “We are pleased that you decided to make contact.”

  I can’t say anything. My brain freezes as if I had eaten a gallon of Biscuit’s ice cream in one bite. I imagine a million possible explanations for this and none of them make sense.

  “It probably didn’t cross your mind that you’d have to negotiate with a human but I am not human,” the girl goes on. “I am more than that. I am what you are. I can wield the shuttering power of a sensory receptor. I can heal and I can destroy. I can help my generous masters thrive. We no longer need you, Freya. But we prefer to have you returned to us. We are all one. This is where you belong.”

  Theo waves his hands at me desperately urging me to say something in response. They scrambled my brain. I didn’t expect someone like her. I can’t find thoughts, let alone words.

  The alien sends the girl off and turns his attention to me. Only his reddish eyes are visible from within his gray hood.

  “When should we expect you?” he says with a hoarse voice.

  I make up my mind. Time is what I need. Time to get to Kroll and the Dark Legion. That’s the only thing that’s of real interest to me. The girl, whether her words are true or not, does not matter. She could be like me but she’s not me. She’s not free and she doesn’t have an army at her disposal.

  “In six days,” I say. “That’s when I will meet you at Plantation-8. That’s when I will come to you.”

  “Six days? No. Too long,” he says.

  “You can take it or leave it.”

  “Two days,” he says.

  “No. I have things to take care of before I leave the life I know. You must understand that.”

  The alien leans into the camera. “Five days,” he says. “No longer or they all die.”

  I nod reluctantly. The feed cuts off.

  *

  WAITING CAN BE TORTURE. It’s been two full days now since I sent Gritu, Malzod and Damian off to Plantation-15 to get Kroll. The sands are slipping through the world’s hourglass.

  They left on an armored Sliman vehicle. If all has gone according to plan, they should be back today. Tomorrow at the latest. I can’t help but think that something has gone wrong. I worry that the Sliman armor and cloak they put on Damian didn’t fool anyone. That he’s been captured again and turned into a slave for the Dark Legion. Or maybe it’s worse than that. Maybe he surrendered willingly. Maybe that’s why he wanted to go in the first place.

  I’m losing my mind and I don’t have the patience to sit down or have a simple conversation. I keep training or walking around the base avoiding human contact.

  I fall to my back in the middle of the training ring and taste the sweat on my upper lip. I stare up at the ceiling and don’t budge when I hear someone approaching. Gritu leans over and stares down at me wondering if I am alive. I jump to my feet and let out a sigh of relief. He’s not injured in any way.

  “You have to come with me,” he says. “Right away.”

  I follow him without questions to the lower levels of the underground base. We go down several staircases before we reach a thick wooden door. Gritu takes a key out and unlocks it. We enter a cavern with humid walls. There’s one electric lamp hanging from the ceiling above a table with four chairs. Damian sits on one of them dressed in his Sliman clothes. He seems to be unharmed although I have no way of knowing what goes on underneath all that heavy fabric. In the back of the cave, there’s a huge figure chained to the wall. Malzod stands beside him with a pulse gun in his hand.

  I walk slowly past Damian. I feel the urge to touch him just to make sure he’s really here, sound and safe, but I manage to control myself.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Malzod says when I’m a few feet away from him and the chained figure. Kroll.

  I look at Malzod’s face and am shocked to see that it’s been beaten to the point where you can barely see the features on it. It’s bruised and swollen and there’s caked blood on his forehead and chin.

  “Malzod,” I say. “You have to go see Doc. Let him take care of you.”

  Malzod shakes his head. “First we have to do this,” he says. “I don’t think we can keep this beast chained for much longer.”

  “He did that to Malzod while sedated,” Damian chuckles. “I had to use a tranq gun on him twice within an hour.”

  “You could have killed him,” I say but I already feel the terror that Gritu and Malzod warned me about. “How did you even manage to capture him?”

  “Brains over muscles,” Damian says.

  “Damian was the bait,” Gritu says. “We told Kroll we had spotted him outside the plantation but couldn’t get to him. His ego accepted the challenge.”

  “The rest was pretty easy,” Damian says.

  “For you maybe,” Malzod says. Then he turns to me. “Come on, let’s not waste any more time. Do what you have to do before the sedation wears off completely.”

  A third shot will definitely kill him. One dose is enough to put an elephant to sleep. But this is no ordinary creature I have in front of me.

  “Can he hear me?” I say.

  “Oh, yes, he can hear you,” Gritu says.

  I clear my throat. “Kroll, my name is Freya,” I say. “I do not wish to harm you. I want to make you a hero on Earth that will be remembered for ten thousand years. I want to bond with you.”

  He lifts his head slowly. His face is hidden behind a scarlet hood, a sign that he’s as high as can be in the ranks of the Sliman. He straightens his body as much as the chains allow him to. He’s taller than anyone I have ever seen, human or Sliman. He throws his head back and the hood falls off his head.

  He locks his eyes with mine and my heart drops. The viciousness I see on his hard features is taken right out of a horror story. He bares his teeth and growls at me, “I will snap your bones and pick my teeth with them.”

  Damian springs up from his seat and punches him in the face again and again until I order Gritu to pull him away.

  “Are you sure Zolkon’s words can be trusted?” Gritu says. “Does this beast look conditioned to obey you?”

  “All we can do is find out,” I say.

  “Suppose he’s not going to bond. What then?” Malzod says.

  “There’s only one thing to do if that’s the case,” I say. “We kill him.”

  “We’ll kill the leader of the Dark Legion?” Gritu asks in disbelief.

  “Do you have a better idea?” I say.

  Gritu doesn’t reply. I take one step closer to Kroll. Damian steps next to me and trains his gun on Kroll. I take a deep breath and try to concentrate. All Sliman have very sharpened senses and if this one is a super Sliman, I wonder if he can smell my fear.

  He’s chained to the wall by both wrists and ankles. Even like this and with Damian’s pulse gun aiming at him, I still fear that he could kill me in an instant. No human could survive two seconds with his hands on them.

  I take the final step that separates me from Kroll and stretch out my arm to touch his left hand. He hisses and writhes as if he is faced with a repulsive demon. I touch his hand and that gives him pause for a moment. He looks at my hand as it rests on his. Then it all happens very fast. With a sudden burst of energy, he pulls at the chain and frees his hand in a split second. Before I know it, that very same hand goes for my throat.

  I gasp for air but I find the strength to look him in the eye. Damian and Gritu jump on Kroll and pry open the fingers around my throat. For a moment, everything goes black. Then the noose of his hand loosens up and I can breathe again.

  Damian, Gritu and Malzod all battle against Kroll’s single hand. I see my chance and take it. I run up to Kroll and use the receptor to burn a hole in his armor. I slide my hand inside the hole and touch the skin on his chest, right where I can feel his heart beating.

  Kroll lets out an agonizing moan. He stops fighting. He looks at me bewildered, my hand still on his chest. I bet he didn’t know
he had a heart.

  I reach for my touchpad with my free hand, bring Zolkon’s code up on the screen and read it out loud just in case.

  Kroll’s resistance lessens by the second. I can feel it in the way his heartbeat slows down. In the way his chest muscles relax under my touch. He was a pulsing neuron a moment ago. Now he’s a lost animal, one that needs protection and reassurance.

  Damian watches in awe. “I didn’t believe it would be possible,” he says.

  “You are responsible for him now,” Gritu reminds me. “You’ve seen what he can do. Guide him well.”

  If only I knew how. I have to trust in what Zolkon said. Trust in what I see in front of my eyes. His surrender is complete.

  “Unchain him,” I order Gritu.

  “I don’t think that’s wise, Freya,” Gritu says. “Let’s wait for a while. See how he behaves.”

  “There’s no time for waiting,” I say. “It will be fine.”

  Gritu hesitates. So does Malzod whose face has grown more swollen.

  “Just do as she says,” Damian says. “He won’t harm her.”

  “How do you know?” Gritu says.

  “I know because I’ve felt what he feels now.”

  Damian’s words cut deep. I don’t know if he realizes this. Maybe he does it on purpose. Maybe he wants to hurt me.

  Gritu removes the chains from Kroll’s wrists and ankles.

  “Don’t move,” I order him.

  Kroll immediately drops to his knees. He bows his head and extends his hand to me in surrender.

  I place my hand on his head. “I need you, Kroll,” I say. “You have to bring the Dark Legion to me.”

  He nods. “Here?” he says as he raises his eyes to look at me. In those eyes I see adoration and submission and, somehow, that makes him even scarier than before.

  I quickly shake my head. “No, not here,” I say. “I will tell you what you have to do.”

  I turn to Gritu. “Go get Finn.”

  Gritu leaves right away. I turn my attention back to Kroll. “The Dark Legion warriors have an added gene that makes them loyal to me. We have to activate it. You have to activate it. Read your officers the code that I will give you and once they are turned, let them spread the word. Make sure there’s not a single warrior left who hasn’t heard the code. Can you do that?”