by Max Jager
Jofal took such advantage of that location as he and another gangly half-orc by the name of Brennar went into hiding from Rem. He didn't mind being covered head to toe in the foul substance if it meant not being spotted for a while. He had just finished shoveling dung over himself with his hands when he heard a strange beeping sound. Puzzled by the cryptic noise, he erected himself and headed in its general direction. It all happened so fast that he couldn't dive for cover or even blink to cover his eyes. A searing white flash of light followed by an incapacitating wave of heat swept over him, charring his already sun-burnt skin and flesh, and knocking him senseless.
Koren felt the gust of wind catch him by surprise, blowing his hair over his eyes. He wiped the strands away and watched the human move closer to him.
"So it's begun," the man in the suit said into a microphone extending from an implement in his ear. "Alright, I'll try to make sure he avoids seeing it, but you really gotta give me more time before waving the green flag like that... Affirmative, Tazer out."
Koren sensed that the man had referred to him. "See what?"
The man muttered something inaudible under his breath. "That has nothing to do with you, kid. Now look, my men have said great things about you. Got the smarts that none of these pie heads could possess in a million years."
"They are what they are," Koren replied ruefully, "but you can at least treat them with a little more dignity."
"Anyway, kid. You could be great coming to our world and realizing your full potential. All that awaits you here is manual labor, which I daresay isn't your forte with a body like that."
Hathren thought of those he'd leave behind by relocating to planet Aezar, the home of the Intergalactic Federal Government. His could care less for parents and brother, as they did him. Except maybe his mother. His friends never seemed to understand him or the value of an education. Yet, he thought, he could at least say goodbye.
"On one condition," he proclaimed.
The man put on an unassuming frown, "And that would be?"
"I would like to bid farewell to my friends and my mother."
"C'mon kid, we don't have time for that. This is a now or never deal. Can't just leave the IFG flagship lying around an extra hour just so you can say goodbye."
"Fine. When does the next flagship come?"
"I really don't know kid, maybe not for a while, so this is really your best bet."
The man said this through gritted teeth, and Koren's sharp wit hardly believed him.
"Bogus. They have to regularly deliver men and supplies here to assist those they already have stationed here. The teachers at my school for inst-"
"Okay, that's enough kid, I really wanted to let you do this through your own will."
The man quickly seized Koren around his waist with his right arm and carried the seventy pound half orc like a heavy briefcase. Resistance was futile, the man's grip too strong. As Koren relinquished the struggle, he suddenly heard a loud explosion coming from his nine o'clock.
"What was that?" he breathed weakly.
"For fuck sake!" was the man's reply. He reached into his pocket, pulling out some sort of syringe and giving Hathren a hard injection in the small of his back.
Koren shuddered at the pain induced from the injection and lay limply in his grasp. Time and space became non-entities to him and he drifted into slumber.
Rem spat every swear word he could think of along with the saliva that sprayed from his mouth in the process, "What in the fucking hell happened, Jo?"
"The... beeping... sound," Jofal managed.
Rem and Brennar gingerly lifted Jofal's charred and sullied body and evenly distributed the weight between their shoulders, a skill they had picked up quickly as a result of often scavenging and fetching water for their households. They rushed toward the dilapidated town clinic in the center of the slum-like village only to hear several more beeping noises suddenly coming from many different places.
"Fuck, the whole place's gonna blow. Leave me and save yourselves!" Jofal cried.
"Dammit!" Rem screamed. "We ain't leaving ya, Jo. Quick! The ditch, over there!"
Rem and Brad dashed with all their strength toward a nearby irrigation ditch and dived in. They could feel the force of the blast push them in and the cruel heat on the back of their scalps. Unable to tumble, they had fallen face first into the shallow pool of the ditch, causing all sorts of scrapes and wounds but for the most part avoiding the blast. Rem had lost both his front teeth (which luckily for him were only part of the second of three sets of teeth orc kind could grow), and his gums and jaw were bleeding profusely. He also had a large gash on his forehead, left arm and left leg. He could taste the metallic saltiness of the blood in his mouth and could see the water around him turning red. Brad had been luckier, having only a couple of bad scrapes on his arms and legs.
Rem arose painfully, taxing every bit of his will to ignore the immense pain of his injuries. "Those fucking bastards!" he screamed with all his might, spraying more blood into the red pool and exhaling heavily after shouting.
Brad got up with greater ease. Jofal's body helplessly floated face-up in the weak stream but for the most part seemed intact. Rem wiped the blood from his mouth and gargled in the water, spitting out the red fluid.
Brad placed his hand on Rem's shoulder. "C'mon, we wouldn't be alive if it weren't for the pact we got."
Brad helped Rem with Jofal, and together with all their might they pushed his body out of the ditch. Their remaining strength sufficed for them to climb out as well.
"The fucking clinic's in ashes... where the hell're we supposed to go?" Rem demanded.
An unexpected voice chimed in from nowhere. "With us," it whispered.
Koren awoke in a hostel deep within the depths of the F.F.S. Gemini. His sharp memory allowed him to quickly understand his predicament, and he realized that he was being relocated to Aezar against his will.
"Let me out of here! You didn't get my approval for this!" he screamed, banging on the door to the room, which he located in the dark.
The door suddenly shifted sideways and the lights in the room turned on, dazing him instantly. Once Koren had regained most of his sight, he wearily eyed the figure at the threshold. It, or he, seemed to be a well clad and decorated member of the human military.
"Come, kid," he said gently, "there's something you need to see."
Koren rubbed his eyes and exited into the hallway. The aesthetic sophistication of ship caught his eye. Chrome blended beautifully in with brushed nickel around the walls and doors to other living quarters. Through a skylight in one of the lounge areas, he could see stars up close like he'd never imagined seeing them before from his home planet.
The soldier led Koren to an elevator that took him from Level L up to Level C. They walked through the bustle of the ship's crew members and up to a door labeled: "Restricted, Authorized Personnel Only." Upon scanning his fingerprint and his iris, the soldier was allowed access into the cockpit.
Koren at once fell under the mesmerizing spell of the cockpit's panoramic view. The ship was apparently orbiting some sort of planet at the time, as far as he could tell. He could also discern a fluorescent beam originating from some area below the cockpit and disappearing into the currently thick and cloudy atmosphere.
"What's... happening?" he questioned innocently.
The soldier who had brought him into the cockpit bluntly addressed his question. "Koren, your home planet is going to be exterminated."
B2 Chapter 4
IV - Reform Era, Year 1021
7:57 a.m.
Koren had chosen to take the seat furthest from the front of the immaculate classroom. Sure, the school built on his home planet was well kept by his standards, but everything on Aezar reeked of cleanliness and order. This classroom had dove-white, evenly painted walls and a similarly colored whiteboard in the front of the room. The desks were made of sturdy, high quality oak, and Koren could tell they were well-cleaned and polished since their
last use.
He dared not look at his skin, however. He repulsed at the sight of its light-peach color. Koren couldn't surmise how it had gone from its customary dark tan to that over an extended period of slumber. He also despised the clothes he had to wear: a long-sleeve white dress shirt, plaid black pants, a dark tan mackintosh, and, to top it all off, a sleazy red tie.
He had also been told the very day he would begin school that his new name would be Hathren. Hathren Drel, if anyone would ask his surname. "Forget the fret," the military officer had told him with a horrendous chuckle, much to Koren's lack of amusement. Koren detested the new name as well, citing how it stripped him of his orc-kind identity. Well, this was his first day in a human school and he decided that he'd take the opportunity to show the humans what he thought about them effectively wiping out the orc-kind and bringing him to Aezar against his will.
The teacher rose from her desk and addressed the class at the front of the room at eight o'clock sharp. She had blonde hair done in a sharp ponytail and firm, light-peach skin similar to Koren's. Koren estimated her age at somewhere between twenty-five and thirty years.
"Okay, class, will everyone stand so we can recite the Oath to the IFG?"
Shit, Koren thought, as much as he detested even thinking of the word. He hadn't even bothered to look at the slip of paper he had been handed the previous night that bore the verse on it, preferring instead to feed it to a fireplace. Reluctantly, he stood up and began mouthing something to look like he was participating.
"I solemnly swear, today and every day, to uphold the honor and standards of the Intergalactic Federal Government. To love my mother, father and brother. To respect my neighbors, teachers and peers. To conduct myself with the utmost dignity. And to work my hardest, year after year."
The class sat silently and awaited the teacher's next command.
"Now, before we begin with mathematics, I am pleased to announce that we have a new transfer student from the Greenshire province. Will the student please come to the front and introduce himself."
Koren rose from his seat. "I'm fine here, thank you very much," he droned without a hint of emotion in his voice, much to the shock of the teacher. A few of the students began muttering.
"Quiet!" the teacher commanded. "I must insist, Mr. Drel, that you stand in front of the class so that everyone can see you when you address them."
"And I must insist that I stand here at the back, where I cannot be seen."
"Just to warn you, Mr. Drel, that kind of attitude isn't going to get you very far here at Royale Academy. This is your last chance for you to do as I say or I will have to report you to the principal."
"I would love nothing more than that," Koren retorted smartly, causing many in the room to erupt into laughter.
"Fine then, I have no choice. Come with me, Mr. Drel."
"Oooooo, trouble," drawled the class in unison.
The teacher, whose name Koren had not taken care to notice on the whiteboard, led him through a series of hallways. As much as Koren detested the place and his predicament, he could not help but marvel at the architecture of the school's buildings. They either sported a construction of rustic brick or tile, or a more modern brass finish. He passed a hallway that overlooked a luscious springtime garden, its prismatic flowers enthralling to his eyes. Koren was so caught up in the scenery that he nearly bumped into the teacher as she stopped to open the door to the principal's office.
"Wait here," she ordered.
The teacher stepped through the threshold and closed the sturdy, sound-proof door. After five minutes, she emerged, this time with a sorrowful expression on her face. Koren surmised that she had been told his "true story."
"I'm sorry, I honestly didn't know what you've been through," she admitted.
Her honesty succeeded in touching a soft spot in Koren but he remained silent as they walked back toward the classroom.
The class had erupted into animated chatter by the time they had entered again, though the teacher quickly quieted them. Koren spared a glance at the whiteboard and learned that her name was Mrs. Vienna.
"Sorry about the delay, class. I hope you have yesterday's homework out, so I can check it. In the meantime, I will put some problems on the board that you can work on as I go around."
Mrs. Vienna quickly wrote some unsolved sums on the whiteboard in neat block lettering and went around checking the class's homework. After a quick glance at them, Koren could tell that they were still way below his league. The last thing he had self-studied in mathematics was the solving of equations with n variables given n equations by creating an augmented matrix and simplifying it to reduced row-echelon form. The sums on the board were simple algebraic expressions of one variable.
Once the teacher had cycled around the class, she addressed the students again.
"Okay, I believe that should have been enough time for you to work the ten sums on the board. We'll start with the first. Who can go up to the board and show the class the answer to 'Four X equals one-half.'?"
Over half the children in the class raised their hands energetically, but the teacher's eyes darted over to Koren.
"Would you mind coming to the board and showing us how to do this sum, Mr. Drel?" she entreated brightly.
"One-eighth" was Koren's terse response.
"I know that," Mrs. Vienna replied, "but could you please show us how you arrived at that answer?"
Koren could no longer bear the sick feeling in his stomach caused by the anguish in his brain.
"If you need an explanation for how to solve this, then you are clearly no better than a mindless hag."
The class gasped and the teacher banged both her hands on her desk. "I have had enough of your attitude today, Mr. Drel. If this continues, I will have no choice but to request you be put on disciplinary probation."
This drew more "Oooo"'s from the class that were quickly quieted by Koren's response.
"Oh I really couldn't have wished for anything better. I thought at first that I would have to resort to physical violence to achieve those ends but really non-violence suits me well enough."
The teacher's tone of voice changed to one of desperation. "Why, Hathren, must you insist on doing everything in your power to disrespect me and your classmates. I understand everything that you've been through, but that doesn't mean you have to take it out on us."
Koren could feel the orc blood growing hotter under his human skin. He had completely lost his patience and his orcish lack of tact erupted itself in full fury.
"You. You have no fucking idea what I've been through you damn liar!" he roared, using his least favorite word without a wince.
"First of all, I'm not from Greenshire province! I'm actually a-"
Koren felt a paralyzing jolt of electricity grip his spinal cord and cause him to pass out immediately on the spot.
Rem, Brad and Jofal stared in awe at three half-orcs who were the embodiment of their wildest imaginations: bandits. They all wore long black cloaks over their muscular builds and had pistols equipped with silencers attached to their belts. On their left hips, they also had long knives concealed by leather sheaths.
"Come with us," the man in the center entreated, though it sounded more like a command.
Rem and Brad nodded and followed the renegades, who took over the duty of carrying Jofal.
"Those cursed bastards have suddenly decided to blow our planet to smithereens, we must hurry!" the same man added.
They ran through expanses of grassland and climbed over cliffs, all the while ducking and cringing at the sound of an explosion. When they had traveled about a mile, the renegades came to a halt and the leader gave the order to stand back.
He reached into his cloak, pulled out an infrared communication device, and pushed the single button on it. The earth around them began to tremble and quake as part of ground rose up and slid to the side, revealing a vast underground hangar. A spaceflight-ready cruiser rose up from the hangar to ground level by means o
f an elevating platform. It had silver paint with a black trim and seemed big enough to comfortably carry eight people. Its wings formed a sort of X shape with a small thruster at the end of every flap.
Once the cruiser had completely surfaced, part of its metallic hull slid away, revealing a doorway into the vehicle. The renegades gestured for Rem and Brad to enter before doing so themselves. Rem quickly realized what he needed to do - join the bandits and do everything in his power to exact vengeance on humankind.
"Begin launch protocol Alpha Sigma Phi!" one of the bandits ordered.