The Sacking of Triolux North
Richard A. DeVall
Copyright 2019 by Richard A. DeVall
The Sacking of Triolux North
Pending 1-18-2019
ISBN:
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For the Guys
Dave
Bill
Brad
Josh
Dominic
Justin
Elijah
Emerson
Larson
Ransom
Nathaniel
Franklin
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 1
An eye for an eye, it was the only thing on their mind
And they’re not going to stop until everyone’s blind
Irish Poet
Stage One
Tee Calmwater was forced to abandon his Airlite when it took a hit and lost all power. The sudden deceleration tossed Tee into the left wall of Green Hall #6. He bounced onto the hard floor and then slid with a thud into the opposite side. He immediately stood and ran for his life around a corner in Red Pass #5. He heard a slew of footfalls and equipment behind him. The noise competed with the screaming blood pressure filling his temples and the beat of his heart pounding in his ears. He couldn’t collect his thoughts enough to form any kind of coherent plan. The big idea, the one consuming opinion that rammed itself into his head, was that he didn’t want to die. Not today, not any day, who wants to die? And so that meant avoiding the advancing army that was killing everyone without hesitation. They came from a mindset formed on the opposite spectrum of the people of Triolux North. They fed on violence and appeared to lack humanity.
As his breathing reached a new place, some kind of unexplored depth in his lungs that pushed his heart into new territory, he asked for help from Alex. “Alex,” he thought, “I’m in Red Pass #5 and need to hide immediately – tell me what to do?”
A smooth, detached and slightly robotic voice, devoid of emotion, advised him to turn left into room 427 and go to the back wall and slide a storage bin a few feet to his left to reveal an access door in the floor. “There you will find a maintenance access door in the floor. Open it and close it behind you while pulling the storage bin over the door as best you can.”
Tee looked around in a wild panic as he moved the bin and saw the door in the floor. He pressed a small rectangle and the door swung inward. A dim light came on illuminating a landing and steps that went into the depth of the maintenance corridors. He grabbed the bin, which was almost as tall as him, and pulled it toward him as he lowered himself onto the landing. It took every ounce of strength to drag the storage container over the opening.
Once the door was shut he spun in every direction until he found a piece of pipe he could jam in the pneumatic door closer. It might buy him a few more minutes. He listened above and below and then scampered down the dim corridor lined with color - coded pipes and power repeaters. There were even some early wiring bundles abandoned from eons ago. He stopped at the first intersection and looked both ways. He listened again and tried to hear anything above his heartbeat. The tunnel system was silent and full of loneliness. The only companion was a slight oil odor along with the solitude that comes from the perfume of mold and dust.
“Alex, where should I go now?”
For the first time in his thirty-one years there was no answer from the insert in his head from birth. He knew then and there they had found the energy source that fed the planet and shut it down. Tee Calmwater sat on a square piece of equipment, one he couldn’t name or even calculate as to its function. His head fell into his hands. He knew as sure as Talium Nine rose in the west and Ventoris #6 sank in the east that terrible, unspeakable things were happening to decent, loving, and caring people on the surface. He would be lucky to survive this slaughter. The animals going about this savage business weren’t humans, yet they were. They wallowed in the old beliefs, an ancient, primitive, self-serving, complimentary system that went back in time to a period of barbarian punishment. They somehow twisted their collective minds and convinced themselves that their superiority coupled with their weapons allowed them to act on every rudimentary impulse. Hate reinforced their negative religion.
Their certainty must flood their minds as they blindly followed the rules of an angry God that was the only thing left from a destroyed planet. The invaders would eventually leave, but not before taking the plankton harvest, the life - extending algae that was the life blood of Triolux North’s economy.
And Tee Calmwater was beginning to have some thoughts of his own, new, vicious thinking that made him conjure up visions of revenge. This both strengthened and weakened him. Strength was not a measurement made by hurting anyone; in fact, it was recognized on Triolux North as that which helped guide his fellow man toward improvement. This was accomplished with integrated social behavior and magnetic mind manipulation. Slowly, there were adjustments made to the thought process of those prone to violence. In the end those afflicted with unwanted urges became peaceful and contributing members of society. This is how he was raised and what made Triolux North a nonviolent planet with very little crime and no standing army.
And now, ruminating in the dark regions of his mind, he wanted to strike back. He’d witnessed men hovering over terrified women, their own husbands lying slaughtered within touching distance. Pools of blood were still spreading around their bashed skulls like gruesome halos. He saw the women’s minds break, it was in their eyes, something in the moisture and the size of the pupil dried and lost cognition. Then there was the damage being done to their bodies by the lines of men waiting their turn. And everyone knew the believers would come back in eighteen years and collect their children. It’s how their armies grew. It’s how they were able to keep their own women as sex slaves and never burdened with having to bear children.
The girls they took on this raid would be added to the pool of new wives and the boys would be programmed for war. Some of this must be going through the heads of the victims. The beautiful soft and sensitive girls of Triolux North will be herded into a transport never to see their families again and know only the savage treatment of their captors from now on.
Tee was too traumatized to cry. He let out a whimper and then he heard a noise and with stealth and soaked fear he moved away from a clawing at the end of the tunnel to the right. He headed left and in so doing gave himself away as the dim lighting came on; and as he moved down the shaft the lights went off. He couldn’t think as to how to stop that and decided to look into a permanent hiding place as he trudged deeper into the maintenance tunnel.
If history was to be believed the conquerors would leave after three days. This was his thinking as he hun
kered down and tried to find a meditative state where his breathing was shallow and he could survive without food or drink for the time needed. He must find the calm spot in his mind and enter into it deeper than he’d ever been before. He needed to become coma still. His heat signature should be hidden from the barrier he hid behind. This would be the only way he could survive and so the first step of this new journey began.
Chapter 2
Out of the darkness that was all and everything shone a blue, shimmering speck, a mote of brilliant light. It was so small and far away that its distance was something that could not be guessed at or measured by a man without some kind of device or calculation. And what would it be compared against? The weight of a dream? The cost of a memory? Whose dream? Whose memory? It impressed him that the light was a goal. The purpose of his existence was to approach the light and eventually reach it and bathe in it. It hinted at knowledge. But how? He didn’t understand this environment. By what mechanism does one move forward, or even backward, for that matter?
And so he cast his vision in all areas of the darkness. Up, down, left, right, sideways and behind. There was only that atom of light silently calling him by its existence. He tried to move forward, lurching as if he had legs, only to find this did not propel him. He had no arms to feel and no ability to inspect his legs for some kind of impairment. He had no floor or ceiling or guide. So he leaned into his belief system, into the thing that guided his conscience, the intellect that told him what a violation looked like and it wasn’t about guilt, it was about improvement.
He said to the light, “I want to know the truth.” He was inched in that direction. His perception was not of distance gained so much as time lost. Some period of space had been consumed and that’s the only measurement he perceived. And now it was pressed in him that he must wait in the stillness to hear a truth. It seemed as if two full and abundant lifetimes had passed before he heard a gentle message. It came from a voice that had a throat made of Neon and Helium.
“All of life conspires to live.”
To him, the he that was reduced to a low level of energy, the challenge was to absorb the statement. He knew he must tease it out, and find the truth of the words. It was only after he believed in his own conviction that he spoke to the light.
“I must respect everything including the hate that resides in others.”
With the release of the words, from the thing that bound them in his mind, his thoughts were sent hurtling toward the light. The effect was a steady drag closer toward the electric blue and vibrating dot in the distance. And then he was moved to contemplate on the word “respect”. He respected the creatures that swam in the Sea of Tri. The monuments of movement that looked like rock carvings, simply known as Waterfalls. They ran water down their frames that mimicked rock formations to keep them hydrated. He believed in the blessings that the Waterfalls bestowed on the people of Triolux, even as they turned those magnificent creatures into food. The same homage was paid to that of the Mother of Pluthe – the soft pink fruit that grew on the trees halfway up the lush mountains.
The trees were thanked for their gift. But he heard from the traders not all humans had compassion or gave thanks to nature when it provided. Some only took and stole and had no desire for improvement because their fellow man was of no concern to them. They were occupied with thoughts of themselves, and yet they were not psychopaths. In fact they were becoming a growing concern to all the other humans because they were becoming unified under the umbrella of a misguided religion.
Tee was taught to respect others and their religion, but this, this day had changed the fundamentals that had formed him. All on Triolux North would now question their teachings. For years there were rumors of the planet Zellhigh being the headquarters of those who followed the word of Adim. A book that miraculously survived the destruction of an ancient planet that spawned all of us, long gone. It was hidden inside a dead and floating satellite. Its survival recorded as a miracle. Its vicious direction was first absorbed by the traders that found it. It gave them permission to behave unencumbered by any tether to morality. Soon they became marauders and then rumors of them populating Zellhigh began to spread.
No one is sure of where they live exactly, because they are secretive. A copy of the book of Adim has yet to reach circulation. They fear the unbelievers would use it for their own propaganda and try to weaken them by twisting their interpretation and planting the seeds of doubt. They say magnetic mind manipulation is a sin against man’s natural instinct. They say man must rule over all, including women. This is why a man’s muscle mass is greater than those of the feminine persuasion. To dispute the obvious is blasphemy. It goes against nature and therefore challenges God.
As the hours melted Tee became aware that the light had moved closer, simply by his lack of thoughts. His mind was void of everyday noise and he was weary, saddened by this catastrophic turn of events. It had left him empty and in that emptiness the light seemed to be depositing a new kind of wisdom. A positive intelligence whispered at conquering the believers but not for the purpose of revenge. The goal for all of mankind is always improvement and this can be done even with the savages, through education and magnetic mind manipulation.
They will want to live, even without the belief of Adim. They are ruled by the truth - all of life conspires to live. They are consumed by power and that cannot be sustained. They are driven by lust, and that is an urge that only feeds the flesh and deprives a man of spiritual nutrition. Lust and only lust becomes a sickness that dives ever deeper into venomous and caustic sadism. Anyone who allows their bodies to dictate their minds has chosen a false ruler. These believers encourage each other in mass hysteria. The song they sing is from the hymnal of physical influence, which is fueled by fear and expresses itself in the condemnation of the nonbelievers. From their first breath this is instilled in them and because of that they are given the right to do unto others anything they want. So says Adim. But without the book we don’t know for sure what is written. It seems at the very least to be anti-civil and hostile toward social harmony. No matter what, it is destructive. It goes against the tide of improvement and the ultimate goal of peace in the universe.
One truth is only so strong and Tee now wanted knowledge that would guide him, a futuristic map that would tell him exactly what moves to make. But, as far as he knows such a thing does not exist and if it did it could be used to self-aggrandize and lead to abuse. Man has this inherent weaknesses, he must check himself in his desire to exploit others. This temptation to strengthen oneself by standing on another’s throat is the result of a poor understanding of purpose and a misguided education. Power of any form, if harnessed correctly, can be transformed into improvement and thus move man closer to the goal, or destroy him. It is this double - edged blessing and curse that serves as both a warning and a siren’s seduction.
Tee was gently shaken by a soft voice. “Brother, wake up. We have water and food.”
Once helped to the surface he saw the stunned faces of his people. They stumbled with ruined dreams and Tee could see they were drained of hope. He was not an orator by nature and his desire for such a thing had never entered his mind, but he was propelled by a deep sense of resolution and a pure purpose of intent. So he stood on a bench, a dark skinned man with cropped hair, of average height with symmetric features. The bench was flaking with dried blood and he faced a huddled mass and spoke.
“I have been to the other side and seen the outcome from a source I cannot define or name. It is our advocate and so I will deliver the message. I pray you heed my words and open your minds and ears to what I am going to tell you.
“We are the path. We are the way. We are the light in an otherwise dark place. Out intentions have been correct and we have been suppressed and raped and beaten by a lost and ruthless tribe. We must rally each other and shake off this invasion. We must build ships that employ speed and stealth. We must devise weapons that stun and incapacitate. We have an entire planet to re-ed
ucate and save. This is our time. Not to seek revenge, but to teach. Not to punish, but to improve. Not to destroy, but to preserve. This is who we are, a fair and decent people who have stumbled, by accident or design, into the most perfect of unions. Through our suffering we will show all that we are not posers, frauds and weaklings, we are the peoples of Triolux North, the best and the brightest. Our swords will fall with speed when needed and our enemies will tremble until they have the light of compassion inside them and understand the need to improve. And those who won’t, or possibly can’t change, will have to be purged in a humane fashion. And we will use their absence as a lesson. This is our time and our calling. We have work to do.”
A rumbling went through the people. It may not be what they wanted to hear - a war cry and a commitment to avenge the dead. They wanted to spill blood. It was, they thought, the only way to satisfy them. Their very souls were bent and revenge was the only direction to stand erect. But inside the speech was a seed that told them their lives, until now, were not a lie. They have always been on the correct path; it’s not them who have been wrong or naive. It is the others who are lost and it’s up to them to not punish but save. And deep in the recesses of wanting a violent response to a violent onslaught, that complimentary knee jerk that has plagued man throughout history, was not what they heard from this guy. So they clung to that final phrase, ‘some will need to be purged in a humane fashion.’ For now, it quenched a primal thirst.
They have less than eighteen years to plan their assault. This will take every minute afforded to plan an invasion of a planet whose location was unknown and defenses were most likely advanced and well-fortified. And somehow, Tee had become their leader in this a society that had no leader but was ruled by many. Guides and teachers yes, but no hierarchy existed with a king by any name. All were paid an equal share and now that commodity has been sacked, and now that there is no plankton, their bodies will deteriorate at an accelerated pace. One speech doesn’t exactly do anything more than give the people a plan. And, sadly, having a map doesn’t guarantee anyone will reach the destination.
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