Revelations Discovery Anthology Volume 1

by Rick Graham

  The scruffy looking farmer’s knees began to shake as he feared where the accusations were leading. “Please, my lord, I have a family that I am trying to provide for. My wife has been sick for a very long time and we need help.”

  Jakarus made a clicking sound with his tongue while he thought. He unconsciously played with a large ruby colored ring on his right hand. “How about this, you tell me if the reports are true about the fruit, and then I will do what I can for you and your family.”

  The farmer rubbed his hands together and looked to his right to see the praetorian guards standing at attention along the wall. Lights built into the ceiling reflected off the polished crimson colored armor of the guards.

  “I…I did take the fruit” the farmer reluctantly said with hesitation.

  With a terrible smirk Jakarus jerked his hand and two guards stepped up to the dirty man and placed a gloved hand on each shoulder.

  The ruling man pointed a finger at the emotionally crumbling farmer and said, “For your crimes against the state, you will be executed.”

  “No! No! Noooooo!” screamed the defeated farmer as he was dragged out by the guards.

  “Hmph…”

  A door to the left of the throne that lead throughout the halls of the mansion flung open. Jakarus spun his head angrily and was about to shout when his eyes widened in shock as he saw his friend quickly approaching him. Jetting straight up from the throne he quickly rushed down the steps to meet Quintus.

  “My lord” Jakarus said hoping that the Prefect Major did not see him sitting in the throne instead of his smaller seat beside it. “It is a great surprise to see you up and about so early. I trust your bed mates last night brought you your desired enjoyment?”

  Quintus waved his hand signaling the guards to leave them. Without saying a word, the twelve praetorian guards left the room. When the two doors shut quietly behind the armed guards the Prefect Major turned to his advisor.

  “Jakarus…” he sought for the right words. Should he tell his closest advisor about the being he saw in his father’s office? No, not yet. “I believe that we have a problem approaching the Republic.”

  The advisor’s eyebrow shot up. “Oh?”

  “I need you to get the prefects together.”

  “Sire?”

  Quintus looked around the room, especially in the corners. “Have them all meet here in the mansion in two rotations.”

  “Is there something that I can help with?” Jakarus asked confused by the order. There had been plenty of times that Quintus was drunk off his rocker and would want to do reckless acts. Coming into the throne room barefoot and wearing a robe certainly didn’t help.

  “No, my friend. I need to speak with the prefects. Now, please, go. Tell them this is not an optional trip. They must all be here.”

  Sensing now was not the time to push further questions, the advisor bowed his head. “As you wish.”

  The sound of Jakarus’ necklace bounced and clanked as he walked out of the throne room.

  “I can’t remember the last time I was alone in this room” Quintus thought. “How am I going to get the prefects to cooperate and throw in their support to go to war?”

  Looking around the room he took a moment to appreciate the craftsmanship in the tiled floor. That was when it hit him. He quickly went up the steps of the throne and pressed a button beneath the arm of the chair.

  The tiled floor design disappeared down into the floor and was replaced by a large computer console and holotable. Quintus strolled down the steps and stopped in front of the main screen. The Prefect Major pressed a sequence of random looking keys on the keypad that made the main screen turn black and had a white word appear in the upper left. It read, “Password?”

  Quintus raised his hand to his chin as he thought. Not quite sure of the answer, he knew that he could only type the password once or else he would be locked out of the secretive screen. He snapped his right hand as the answer popped into his mind.

  Even though he felt he knew the correct password, his hands still hesitated for a moment. When he became Prefect Major he was told about this secretive screen by one of the Keepers. Being raised in a relative time of peace as a child, Quintus never thought he would ever need it.

  He reached down to the keypad and typed in “keep the peace at all costs” and pressed the enter key. The screen went completely black and then went back to the initial screen as if it had never displayed the hidden screen. “Did I do it right?” he asked aloud.

  The holotable rang as it received an incoming communication. Quintus pressed the green flashing button and an ominous voice spoke through the speakers. “Prefect Major?”

  “Yes” he replied. “This is Quintus. Peace, is that you?”

  Two rotations passed but every one of the prefects managed to make it to the meeting. Jakarus had informed the Prefect Major that each man and woman summoned was not pleased to be whisked away from their duties in their prefectures, especially since the meeting was on such short notice.

  Stopping just short of the sound proof double doors Quintus took a moment to take a breath. Four praetorian guards stood up against the walls ready to act in defense of the Prefect Major in a moment’s notice.

  His mind had not eased since his visitation from that mysterious being. He still wasn’t able to tell if he had experienced some sort of hallucination, but his gut told him that it was genuine, and if nothing else, his nightmares may be a vision of something sinister lurking just outside of the Corre Republic’s borders.

  “Either way, I have to do something about it” Quintus said in his own mind. He impressed himself that he was all of a sudden stepping up to the position his father had fought so hard for him to have. It had angered many of the prefects that he had been chosen by the previous Prefect Major rather than leaving it up to vote as was customary.

  As the double doors burst open Quintus was able to catch the tail end of the conversation well underway between all of the prefects. Jakarus stood at on the opposite side of a large round table in the center of the dimly lit room, while the other prefects in their expensive and luxurious clothing sat in their designated seats. A single beam of light illuminated the table and those seated around it. The walls of the room were outside the light and thus were very dark. Quintus couldn’t help wonder if that thing was somewhere in the shadows.

  It was clear from his advisor’s defensive stance and red face that he had been doing his best to ease the prefects’ minds, and probably was close to losing his temper.

  The powerful men and women representing the real authority of the Republic sat in this room, and Quintus wanted to be sure to grab hold of their attention and respect as fast as he could. “Am I interrupting anything?” he asked as he walked around the table and sat beside Jakarus.

  “We were just discussing the need for such an urgent meeting my lord” the advisor said as he took his own seat to the right of Quintus.

  “I want to thank you all for making the journey to Prime on such short notice” Quintus said as he surveyed the room.

  It had been so long since he had seen many of the faces that sat around him that Quintus took a moment to recall all of their names. To the Prefect Major’s immediate left sat Prefect Valens of the Core prefecture. Simply due to being ruler over the Core worlds gave the short man a great deal of stature with the others.

  It then continued to Seneca from Colonial, Lucius of Stardust, Livia of Expansive, Julia of Calcum, Felix of Dultariun, Cornelius of Labos, Decimus of Calx, Gaius of Quarry, and Haines of Siimon. Of the ten prefects Lucius, Julia and Seneca needed to be won over to Quintus’ plan because they commanded large experienced armies. Many of their worlds were border planets which meant they had to be stationed to repel invaders. Gaius and Cornelius were also vital because of their construction and mining worlds. Worlds such as Canopy and Arcus were incredibly important to any type of war effort as they could supply so many minerals and much needed labor for resupplying the front lines.

>   While Livia and Haines were powerful because of their ranks, their support was not directly needed at the beginning of the war if they were going to draw a hard line of opposition. Speaking of which, Haines, Julia and Seneca would probably be the loudest opposition to his plans. Even though Quintus had stayed out of politics for several cycles it was well known even by him that those three were busy forming their own effort to use their military and mercenary forces to solidify their own power in the Republic.

  “Now is the time…” Quintus thought internally before starting. “Prefects, I know that I have done a poor job as your Prefect Major.”

  Several of the prefects shared glances of confusion and suspicion.

  “My lord, I don’t think that is fair…” Lucius began before Quintus held up a hand.

  “Please, as we move forward in this conversation I want us twelve to be very open with one another. Masks and fake faces are for when we are outside of this room. Here, I want us to speak clearly.”

  Lucius nodded his bald head in respect and leaned back.

  “I want to start by apologizing to all of you. Since my father appointed me just before his death to this position I know I have not taken things seriously.”

  Seneca turned to Haines and smirked as if they had an inside joke. Quintus caught the exchange but decided to move on rather than cause a fight right out of the gate.

  “I want to say very clearly that I am no longer going to shrug off responsibility to others. I am going to take the reins of this Republic and lead as I was meant to.”

  This time it was Jakarus’ turn to try and hide his thoughts from showing on his face.

  “As of this moment going forward, you are all going to report to me just as you did for my father. Furthermore, I want you to send Jakarus a detailed and thorough breakdown of your military assets, resources, and supplies including which worlds they have been allocated to.” The Prefect Major had lived in a hyper political environment for his whole life. He knew how to quickly assess a room after serious news hit to read people’s body language for hidden hints to their inner thoughts.

  Seneca squinted his eyes and tilted his head as if he wanted to speak up but resisted. Several others looked at one another very seriously wondering what their Prefect Major was really after. Haines on the other hand was ready to be defiant.

  “My excellency, may I ask for all of us, why you would request detailed information on our military assets?” the Prefect from Siimon asked.

  This was the time to press in and show them he was really the one in charge. “I apologize Prefect Haines…”

  The older man smiled as if he forgave Quintus.

  The Prefect Major continued, “I certainly did not mean to make it seem as though I was requesting this information. It is an order.”

  Haines’ face rapidly turned blood red as his slow brain made the connection. Seneca beat him to the punch though.

  “Prefect Major, I know I don’t need to remind you that all of us sitting here are ruling prefects. We do not…”

  Quintus cut him off with his own angry stare. “You will comply, or you will be considered an enemy of the state.”

  Several of the prefects looked shocked by the escalating verbal confrontation.

  Felix, Gaius and Livia stood up one by one and began to shout.

  “You can’t do this to us!” argued Gaius.

  “We are Prefects, not some lowly house servant” demanded Livia.

  Jakarus was still in the dark as to why Quintus had called all of the prefects together, so he elected to stay quiet in the argument to see how things would play out. The two had been friends for a very long time and he knew when the Prefect Major was getting to the edge of his patience and when he could push him a little further.

  Quintus slammed his fist into the table and stood up. “Enough! I am your Prefect Major, and you will do as I say.”

  Haines nearly spat when he said, “You haven’t even been around for what, at least three cycles. While you have been caught up in your sexual fantasies some of us have been leading this Republic. What could you possibly need this information for?”

  The Prefect Major forced himself to calm down before he responded. “I want to launch a massive campaign to reunite all the worlds of humanity back under one banner.”

  Over half of the prefects looked completely stunned by the young Prefect Major’s statement.

  Seneca on the other hand wasn’t having it. “Ha, sure. The worlds have been fractured for over 400 cycles. It is an impossible task to reunite them all together in one effort.”

  Quintus shook his head as he began to pace around the room. He had spent the better part of two rotations giving serious thought to how he would package his idea so that the Prefects would go along with it. Now was as good as time as any to try. “I disagree Prefect. At one point all colonized worlds worked together to better humanity. Science, technology, medicine and more all flourished.”

  All of the standing prefects sat as they listened intently to Quintus speak. Even Seneca and Haines wanted to know where this was leading.

  “I believe that if we can re-unite all of the worlds again under one banner, that we can have another golden age. At least, that is what we will tell everyone.”

  “My excellency, but all of the bordering nations fought feverishly for their independence from the Republic, they will not submit to us simply because of idea of prosperity. And we do not have a strong enough force built up to accomplish such a task” Decimus said in a tone that was not confrontational just matter-of-factly.

  The Prefect Major pointed his finger up towards the ceiling. “You are right Prefect Decimus, we do not right now. However, in a cycle we could. If all of the prefectures worked together to assist one another we could pull together forces capable of launching a simultaneous war to reclaim all of the lost worlds.”

  Haines spoke up again, but this time not quite as loudly. “With respect your highness, I am not about to send my citizens into a meat grinder against the Union of Stars for some starry-eyed idea.”

  Quintus knew what the Prefect really meant under the words he used. “You mean to say that you do not want to risk losing the power you have built up for yourself. Let’s be incredibly clear here everyone, I know that in my absence that many of you have chosen to build up forces to solidify your own internal power struggles. However, you will assist this reclamation war effort.”

  “And what if we refuse?” Livia inquired as she crossed her arms.

  “I believe it would be more advantageous for us to focus on the reward of those who assist in this unified effort. We are all aware of the treasures and gain that could be possible if the lost worlds were brought back into the fold. Seeing as how every prefecture except for Core border lost worlds, one of the benefits of this war will be that lost worlds will be folded into the prefecture of those that lead the various campaigns.”

  Quintus stopped pacing and looked at Prefect Valens. “I will speak with you for how you will be rewarded for your efforts in this war.”

  The Prefect nodded as though that was sufficient for now.

  Turning back to the side Quintus continued to walk around the table. “I want to reward each and every one of you abundantly, but it does require cooperation.”

  “I still don’t see how this is going to be possible. Only Seneca and I understand how dangerous the Union of Stars is. We both have lost badly at their tactics” Haines said as he butted his voice back into the conversation.

  “And I have seen firsthand how difficult it is to corral the Faust citizens into submission. I will not throw away precious soldiers for a feigning effort that will merely give you more power” Julia said standing up. She braced herself on the table as her face contorted in anger. “I fought too hard to get where I am to gamble it all on some half-cocked idea. You are not your father. This will not work.”

  Quintus placed a finger to his lips as if he was in thought. “I see.” The Prefect Major flicked his hand as if to swa
t her away.

  Julia’s face turned bright red but before she could speak the back of her head exploded and she fell on top of the table.

  The sitting Prefects all pushed back away from the table in confusion and shock.

  “What have you done!” Haines shouted before a sword pierced through the back of his chair and out of his chest. Blood poured out of his mouth as he looked down at the metallic blade. It was yanked out abruptly and the old man slumped to his right as he died.

  The sword seemed to shimmer in the solo light as its wielder, the Keeper of Peace, stepped forward. Peace was clad in his dark blue head to toe colored armor. His emotionless black faceplate reflected the light in a menacing way. He twirled the sword flicking the Prefect’s blood off into the darkness then released it. The sword disappeared in a puff of small particles.

  Seneca watched as the pool of blood from Julia spread on the table. He felt sick to his stomach.

  Quintus gave a slight smile to the Keeper. “Thank you, Peace.”

  Without saying a word, the armored Peace tapped his helmet with the handgun he held in his left hand and took a step back into the shadows. Jakarus stared at Peace, completely caught off guard by the dual slaying of the Prefects.

  Quintus placed his hands on the table and leaned into the light. “As I said, those who cooperate will be rewarded heavily. We will reclaim all of the lost worlds.”

  Each of the Prefects shared glances at one another once more, seeing if anyone dared say anything against what just occurred. No one did.

  Cornelius stood up and tucked his hands into his long sleeves. “Your excellency, you have my support.”

  “As mine” Lucius said speaking up.

  “And mine!” Gaius shouted proudly.

  One by one each of the remaining Prefects declared their commitment and loyalty to the Prefect Major. Quintus outwardly fought to show strength but inside he was battling his own fear of the approaching war with the Syn Armada. “We will deal with that enemy when it presents itself. Right now, I have to focus on bringing all of the lost worlds back to the Republic” Quintus thought to himself.