Horsemen United: Horsemen Origins Books 1-5

by Benjamin Hartman

  Lee realized where he’d seen that face before.

  “The Hermit from the mountains,” Lee whispered.

  “You know him?” Yiu Mei asked.

  “Yes, how do you?”

  “He’s my brother,” Yiu Mei replied.

  Lee stared through the darkness in disbelief, but in hindsight realized the truth. He was to bring terror to the Emperor’s heart. It was not up to him to execute the Emperor, that would be for the miners to do.

  “Call off your troops! Call off the bombers!” Lee screamed as he pulled Yiu Mei to his feet, keeping his rifle placed firmly in Yiu Mei’s back as he pushed him through the palace.

  The two men walked out the front doors to see hundreds of crimson Tingchia standing in the courtyard.

  “Tell them to surrender. Tell them it’s over,” Lee whispered into Yiu Mei’s ear. “Snipers included.”

  “Lay down your weapons my warriors. I shall throw myself upon the mercy of the Core Senate!” Yiu Mei screamed.

  The entire courtyard was aglow from the Core ships. The soldiers inside poured out in a tidal wave and ordered the miners to stand down. They saw the condition of the miners and made the Tingchia surrender all of their weapons.

  Jay came across the mob in the courtyard. He tried to scream at Lee, to tell him to execute the Emperor then and there, but his voice was drowned out by the shouting mob.

  Another ship landed, and a wave of civilian reporters and camera drones spilled out, searching for the Anarchist of Ophridia. The thousands of lights from the cameras threatened to overwhelm him. The normally sleepy, quiet courtyard had become a hive of activity within a matter of seconds.

  The entire galaxy watched as Lee, the Anarchist of Ophridia held the toppled Emperor Yiu Mei on the edge of the palace.

  Soldiers surrounding a Chinese man shouted at Lee to drop his weapon. This man was in a fine suit and approached the edge of the palace. “Hello Mr. Lee. I’m Core Senator Mao. We can take Colonial Governor Yiu Mei from here.” His tone was too calm, too even.

  “Colonial Governor?” Lee screamed. “Do you have any idea what this man has done to us?” An eerie quiet settled over the crowd except for the clicks from the cameras.

  “He’s murdered us! Tortured us! Held us under heel as slaves!” Lee screamed.

  “We’re all very aware of the alleged atrocities committed by Yiu Mei. Please, allow us to take him into custody so that we may proceed with a proper trial,” Senator Mao said.

  Alleged atrocities. That was how this representative of the Earth Core government saw the Yiu Mei situation. Earth wanted due process, which would take decades. Each passing year was one more year Yiu Mei would sit in protective custody, until the atrocities on Ophridia were long forgotten by Yiu Mei’s prosecutors.

  Lee saw only one option left. He looked to the doll that dangled from his belt and remembered Ju as she giggled when she came running across their dining room floor into Ai Fen’s arms.

  He kicked Yiu Mei behind his knees, forcing him to kneel and shot him in the back of the head. A collective gasp echoed across the crowd as the body of the fallen emperor tumbled down the palace steps.

  Lee tossed his rifle away and kneeled down on the ground while the soldiers swarmed him and Senator Mao glared at him.

  Lee and Jay were held in isolation for over a year while the Core compiled evidence on whether to hold a trial for the two men alleged as terrorists. The legal evidence was murky since Ophridia had been cut off in Yiu Mei’s illegal secession from the Core.

  One day, the holding cells were unlocked and the guards escorted Lee and Jay into an interrogation room telling them that they had a visitor. They gave each other a puzzled look.

  “Maybe it’s those bloody vultures in the media. Should we tell them to sod off?” Jay asked.

  “Either that or tell them tsao ni zuzong shiba dai.”

  A black man wearing a gray suit and a black tie, neither of which fit quite right walked into the interrogation room. He adjusted his tie as he loaded up a dossier about Lee and Jay.

  “How is it that a botanist-turned miner and a humble shipping merchant come to overthrow the most ruthless dictator in the galaxy?”

  “Well you see now we-”

  “It was a rhetorical question,” the man said as he cut Jay off. “Now, you two have just executed one of the most well connected leaders in the Core. A lot of people were involved with keeping Yiu Mei in power for better or for worse and are going to find their pocket books getting a lot lighter. In short, people are going to come after you for this. Prison is going to be a very dangerous place.”

  “Get to the point hundan,” Lee snapped.

  “Yeah, I was told that you’ve got quite a potty mouth Lee. Look, I’m here to offer you two a third option. My name is Colonel John C. Henry and I’m building a team…”

  --The End--

  6

  Jabal climbed inside of his finished Chamber device. He saw his reflection in the screens surrounding him. A shaven head, beaked nose, and deep brown eyes, he always believed he was descended from Persian nobility. A cursor blinked in the corner, but then a vast array of jarred text filled the screen. Within seconds he was surrounded by code which he could manipulate at will. His customized bracelet controllers allowed him to physically move inside of his Chamber, the latest computer device which submerged their owners into a reality of their choosing. The Chamber was dome shaped, with a chair in the middle. When activated, the chamber darkened on the outside, protecting the systems from light interference. Inside, the world came alive as the screens projected the clearest images the human eye could recognize. Each of the screens were touchable, providing an interactive environment for gamers, coders and of course, hackers.

  “Now I’ve got you,” Jabal said as he waved his arms and zoomed in on a corporate account. It was a no-named shipping business located on Aurelius Prime, a planet known to house rebels, scoundrels and wealthy men who sought to hide their credits.

  “You’re no match for me.” Jabal pulled up his holographic keyboard and typed a chain of script. His lightning-quick fingers were nimble and thin, honed from years of typing on invisible keys.

  He set a timer and raced himself as he typed a series of commands. The company’s virtual service code flooded before his eyes, his usual tricks no match against the strengthened security.

  “Hmm, not bad bankers. Guess I’ll send in my Wrecking Crew after you,” Jabal said as he pulled up three windows.

  “Hello Jabal, what data may I gather for you today?” A mischievous voice echoed within the Chamber.

  “Hey Loki, take the Wrecking Crew and penetrate the server defenses here. It’s time we test this ransomware we’ve been working on.

  “I’m getting us into position for an assault on their security systems,” Loki said as he evaporated into the code and went into cyberspace. Jabal had spent years developing multiple artificial intelligence programs which were capable of targeting any dataset he wanted and would find all the information he needed about it. Typically he performed small theft, but now there was a chance for a big score which held virtually no risk.

  He had become obsessed with shipping companies that rarely traveled within Core jurisdiction. They would only service the outer reaches where the Coalition government reigned, and they kept encrypted shipping documents or cargo lists that were obviously falsified.

  Arms dealers.

  They wouldn’t turn to the Core authorities, their sworn enemy in the midst of the Unification Wars, and the newly formed Coalition Government didn’t have the resources to deal with cyber warfare.

  Loki returned. “Sir, we’ve located the organization’s servers. Millions of shipping records with destinations located in the Outer Regions beyond Core Space, right in Coalition territory.”

  “Perfect. Are Eris and Laverna in place?” Jabal asked.

  “Yes sir they are,” Loki replied.

  “Perfect. Let’s threaten to shut this place down,” Jabal said
. He typed out his demands to ransom the shipping company and threatened to destroy everything if they didn’t agree to pay. His heart pounded in his chest, and his breathing grew shallow. He had never done anything on this scale before, but he did his research, and everything was in place. All that was left was to execute.

  “Go!” Jabal shouted with glee. He issued his demands for ransom payment, put the Wrecking Crew on standby and waited for the owner to write back.

  The reply was simple: “Do your worst.”

  Jabal grinned from ear to ear. “Loki, Eris, Laverna, overwhelm his servers,” He commanded. The four issued millions of commands in seconds, unleashed the ransomware and waited for a response. Jabal could see the company’s servers collapse one by one like a series of dominoes.

  Another reply came through: “Fine! Take the damn money!” Jabal waited until he saw a deposit for over one million credits into his account, a sum most people wouldn’t ever see in their lifetime.

  “Loki, call them off,” Jabal said as he shut down the ransomeware. He was interrupted when the Chamber door was thrown open.

  “Jabal Amir! You should not be using this evil machine!” Abdul screamed.

  “Father, there is nothing evil about this machine!” Jabal hissed.

  “Of course these machines are evil! Young men spend all their time watching pornography or…” He paused as he saw the logo of his son’s bank account on the Chamber dashboard. It was a notification of acceptance of over 1.3 million credits.

  “Stealing?! My son, a thief?” Abdul screamed.

  “Father, I wasn’t stealing, it was a…um…”

  “That’s what I thought! In ancient times they would cut off the left hand of a thief like you! Son of a cleric indeed! You don’t deserve to live here!”

  “You know why you became a cleric father? It’s because you’re nothing! You’re jealous of my talent for computers and you’re pissed off that you don’t have any skills other than getting on your knees five times a day!”

  “How dare you speak to me like that! You think you’re so smart to hide here in the basement of the mosque, but we found you because your machine uses up all of the electricity! The lights flicker when you turn this contraption on! I will not have this device of thievery in this sanctum,” Abdul said and turned to a group of followers. He issued a orders to them in Farsi. All of them pulled out a steel rod and walked towards the Chamber.

  “Father! You can’t do this!” Jabal pleaded. He lunged for the Chamber, but his father stepped in and blocked him.

  “Get out of my way! I paid for all of it! I built it! It’s mine!” Jabal screamed, but Abdul held him firmly in place. His followers approached the Chamber and smashed it to pieces. In that moment Jabal watched his life’s savings destroyed before his eyes.

  “Get off of me you savage!” Jabal screamed as he shoved his father away. Abdul’s eyes were set ablaze.

  “Savage?!” Abdul hissed. “You shall honor your father!”

  “You should honor your son, yet you just destroyed my life’s work you mindless brute!”

  Abdul seized Jabal by the collar. “You’re life’s work was wasted on these machines!”

  “I said get off of me!” Jabal screamed as he socked Abdul in the jaw. Abdul released his son and covered his nose where blood was gushing out.

  “Get out!” Abdul screamed. “Get out of my house and never come back! I never want to see you again!”

  “With pleasure! I don’t need you and your mysticism! I have all I need here!” Jabal said as he grabbed his comm device and ran out of the mosque.

  The air was fraught with a heavy moisture as the sky above threatened to split. Jabal wandered the streets amidst the screaming merchants haggling with one another over the prices of their wares.

  “Nothing like a day at the market on Planet Alexandria,” Jabal whispered to himself.

  A chill settled in through the market, while Jabal checked his comm device. A tightness gripped his chest and he became light headed when he saw his screen.

  His bank account was at zero.

  Over the course of the next week, Jabal wandered the streets scrounging for food wherever he could find it. He slept in alleyways, his clothes becoming ragged and rotten from the rain. He tried his usual tricks in cyberspace, but it felt like there was a force preventing him from cyphering any money into his account. Feeling defeated and abandoned, he was able to use his comm device to create falsified identity papers and sell them in the back alleys. His hustling paid off, and the first thing he wanted was to buy a hot meal at The Djinn Palace, a local restaurant. He walked in, smelled the rich Alexian coffee, and sat down in a booth.

  The crowd was full of lively discussion, and he didn’t notice when a well-worn droid entered the restaurant. It was a brown, skeletal model with only the bare essentials but it had a nimble grace in each step. What drew attention to this unit was the fact that it had an oversized shawl tied around its neck. The droid paid no mind to most of the patrons as it scanned the room, searching for its target. The unit also had a rifle strapped over its shoulder which was against regulation, however enforcement had collapsed due to the Unification Wars.

  There was a human male with his back to the droid. His description matched what the droid was searching for, but it needed to be certain. It walked through the restaurant in a casual stride until it passed the man in the booth.

  Jabal tapped on his communication device, refining his artificial intelligence programs. A pair of rusty red mechanical legs slipped by him, until he felt as though he was being watched. He looked up, and saw the soulless eyes of a droid staring at him.

  Jabal leaped up from his booth, but the droid shoved him back in with ease. It drew a pistol and slid into the booth, pinning Jabal inside.

  “What do you want?” Jabal asked.

  “For you not to panic,” the droid replied. “My master wishes to speak with you.”

  Jabal’s throat went dry and his heart thundered in his chest. This was no doubt about the money that he’d stolen. He tried to push out, but the droid drove him into the wall.

  “Will you come willingly or do I need to tranquilize you and bring you in?”

  Jabal huffed in frustration. “Will he kill me?” He asked.

  “If my instructions were to kill you, you’d be dead,” the droid replied. “No, you captured my master’s attention and he would like to meet you face to face.”

  “So he sent a droid?!”

  The droid groaned. “Humans. Always focusing on the obvious. He’s a private individual. C’mon, up you go now,” the droid slid out of the booth, pulled Jabal up, and then shoved the pistol into his back. Jabal felt his breathing constrict. He wanted to cry out for help, but even if he received help, the authorities would likely arrest him for inquiries into past cyber crimes. The droid shoved him forward with its pistol and out of the restaurant without anyone noticing.

  The droid escorted Jabal to a small ship on the edge of the city. “Do you know how to fly?” It asked.

  “No,” Jabal replied.

  “Good. That means if you attack me during the flight, you will plummet to your death.”

  “You…you can’t just go kidnapping people like this!” He screamed.

  “Go ahead, call the authorities,” it replied. “I am fully compliant and posses papers stating my business. Non-falsified legal papers.”

  Jabal sneered at the droid. How could it have possibly known?

  “That’s what I thought,” the droid replied.

  The flight was a quiet three-week trip to a world beyond the fringes of Core space where sand dominated the landscape. Jabal was escorted to a warehouse where a man with short white hair and pitch black goggles stood out front. His face seemed as though it were chiseled into a permanent scowl with burn marks where fire had raked his cheek. He lifted his left hand to adjust the goggles, and revealed a metallic arm with white plates lining the entire limb. The dusty winds whipped against his simple tan clothing and ov
er sized shawl.

  “Bring me a present, Red?” He asked.

  “Here he is master,” Red said with a bow. Jabal shivered from fear, despite the heat of the desert. Goosebumps spread across his skin and he felt lost.

  “Let’s talk inside,” the white-haired man said.

  Jabal was frozen in place, too scared to move.

  “C’mon now, he said inside,” Red said as he waved his pistol.

  Jabal felt his stomach swirl with bile. He wanted to crawl into a hole, bury his face in the sand, do anything other than face the man who had ousted him. Of all the people in the galaxy he could’ve stolen from, he picked the one man who would have him brought to an isolated desert where he could murder him and let the sands erode his memory.

  The white-haired man sat at the table while Red and a towering silver droid flanked him. The silver droid was nearly twice as big as a human, its fists as large as the man’s head. It had slivered red eyes, but there was a gentleness in its stare. A golden disc glowed in its chest, but he couldn’t tell the purpose of the device.

  Jabal crept into the room and took a seat.

  “What do you want with me?” Jabal asked in a broken voice.

  The white-haired man glared at him through his goggles for what felt like an eternity.

  “What do you know?” He finally asked.

  “Excuse me?” Jabal replied.

  The man kept his scowl fixed on him. He tapped his fingers on the table, but didn’t utter a word.

  “I…don’t know anything,” Jabal said to break the silence.

  “Bullshit. You’re the first one to break through my defenses, to shut down my network. What do you know?”

  “I only did what I needed to in order to get the credits. I didn’t steal any information!”

  The boxy silver droid leaned down next to the man and whispered something.

  “Sol here says that based on your micro expressions you’re telling the truth,” the man said.

  “Damn straight I am!” Jabal snapped. “At least I didn’t take your life savings!”