by H. T. Kofruk
Bongani ordered the projector to zoom into the station. All lights were out, even the four red beacons that would normally blink in alternation around the station. As the holograph descended to the lower decks, Terry suddenly yelled stop. Further zooming showed a round hole in the wall of the station.
“Looks like a pod entered the station” remarked Terry.
Bongani twitched his forefinger so the projected holograph would move horizontally. More holes of the same shape and size appeared.
“So the attackers boarded the station. Do you think they’re still there?” asked David.
“I wouldn’t know why they would stay. But there’s only one way to be sure” replied Terry with eyes still glued to the holograph.
When they had changed into their atmospheric suits and the smuggling ship had aligned itself near one of the holes, Bongani, Terry and Heera ‘flew’ out of the side hatch, propelled by the compressed gas shooting out of their gas-packs. Bongani’s atmospheric suit was pitch-black with a huge white fang coming down from his right shoulder to the left side of his stomach. Terry and Heera both wore orange suits and helmets. Light illuminated their faces just in case they lost communication and facial expression and lip-reading became necessary.
The three space-walkers entered one of the holes and hoped to pass a gravity-shield after which gravity, air density and temperature would gradually normalize. If the shield generator had been damaged or destroyed, it meant they would have to go back and forth to the ship to recharge gas and oxygen. As they passed the various layers of the outer-wall, a dead, bloated rat passed by Heera’s visor. Since the Age of Exploration, these buggers always seem to tag along…
A few feet before the outer wall and the maze of electrical cabling ended, the effects of the gravity shield were slowly felt. The temperature rose and their bodies became heavier. By the time they had gone through the hole in the inner wall, they were walking.
Bongani took off his helmet, generating a hissing sound that might as well have been a gun shot in the deathly silence. As he stripped off his atmospheric suit, Terry and Heera saw he was wearing a grey and black amplifier suit underneath. This one also had a large black fang from shoulder to stomach. From his black bag, he fished out a pulse rifle and a helmet with a snarling black lion’s face for a visor. He put on the helmet but kept the visor up. With another loud hiss, the armour attached to his accelerator suit suddenly inflated with sinister spikes protruding from the shoulders, elbows, knees and knuckles. He threw another pulse rifle to Terry who was dressed in the badly fitting clothes of the three inch taller smuggler.
Heera was wearing a grey jump-suit that had belonged to a long-dead female member of his crew. It didn’t fit perfectly, but she at least had no problem moving around. She felt slightly light-headed from the first space-walk she had done and the sudden reintroduction of gravity.
The three walked in a line along the hallways of the station with Bongani leading and Terry bringing up the back. The holes in the wall from pulse fire showed how fierce the fighting had been. In some places, there were large, bowl-shaped dents in the wall as if something large had been thrown at it at great force. As they stepped through the rubble, they soon came across the first Renden corpses; a group of a dozen Atlantic Alliance army soldiers with two officers among them, all of them well armed with their dark blue armour inflated.
Bongani bent down to inspect one of them by briskly ripping off the visor that hid the soldier’s face. The face of a young boy, perhaps no more than nineteen or twenty years old, was revealed. His body showed no signs of entry wounds but judging by the blood that now caked around his nose, mouth and eyes, something had hit the boy at such an impact that his eyes slightly bulged out of their sockets.
Terry called out to the others and flashed his light at a dark corner. Bongani and Heera looked to see a soldier stuck to the wall, his body impaled by a piece of metal torn away from the machinery embedded in it. Whoever or whatever did this was wielding extremely powerful weapons, or was extremely strong.
After Heera picked up a weapon, they continued walking. Terry checked to see if his pulse rifle’s power cell had enough juice; without the correct access codes, he wouldn’t have access to wireless energy transfer from the fusion generator even if it wasn’t damaged. He was happy to see that the energy-film cell was full.
Heera was slightly uncomfortable with her pulse rifle since she had only ever trained with the double barrelled PFR-2 rifle, or the PFSA-9 sidearm, both of which were made in the Pacific. The larger, single barrelled rifle that was standard issue in the Atlantic Alliance army seemed unnecessarily long and heavy, and ugly at that. The bottom side of the rifle was designed to be fitted with a long bayonet and the entire frame was alloy-reinforced.
“I hope you know how to use that, woman” Bongani said rather insolently.
Heera had been afraid of Bongani when they first met. After all, a Renden female in space was rather rare, so Renden smugglers and pirates were apt to raping the first woman they met if they could. But then the glances she spied between Bongani and David revealed their real relationship. Terry, who had probably been taught to see their kind as the lowest form of humanity, didn’t seem to have noticed this. He already shared with her what he thought of the Empire of Afrika; ‘a colony of boy-fuckers and mongrel worshipers’, probably alluding to their tolerance in religion and sexuality.
The three continued through the rubble and dead bodies. The only sounds were a perpetual whirring sound from somewhere and the occasional malfunctioning machine giving off sparks. They had passed at least ten boarding pods, all of them empty. But when they came across perhaps the eleventh, Terry stood rooted to the floor staring at it. Heera saw a slight tremble in his jawline and perspiration rolling down his temple. If she hadn’t known him better, she would have thought he was afraid. But Terry? No…
There were six alien carcasses in the pod, apparently about to leap out. But someone had timed an incinerator grenade launch impeccably and they had burned to death almost instantly. Bongani approached the blackened pod and carefully poked the one whose body was slung over the edge of the pod exit. His cautious movements seemed almost mindful of Terry’s frightened looks. The cadaver didn’t move. Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he grabbed the alien’s large head and lifted it. This one’s face had not burned and it revealed a heavily armoured head and slanted yellow eyes. The pain of the searing death was permanently imprinted on its face.
“We have to get out of here” said Terry, trying to conceal the fear in his voice.
“Do you know what these are?” asked Bongani, but Terry remained mute.
Terry looked towards Heera, with a sad expression full of resignation.
“Do you, Terry?” she asked quietly.
“We’re going to die here” he replied.
Chapter 26: Stress
‘The power of the Cosmos and the will of Heaven bring rain and sunlight to Earth. They bless the Earth because they love their son, the Walking God. Without the Imperial bloodline with us, our mortal lives will end with suffering.’ – High Priest Han Dalian,
The oolong tea was getting strong as the tea leaves sat in the lukewarm water for longer than expected. The kettle made of fine bone china was almost cold to touch. Fingers drummed on the white and blue porcelain table. He knew this delay was meticulously planned to remind him of his inferior status. After all, the person on the other end was the most powerful person in the Yinhexi. And sooner or later, that status would be bestowed unto him.
With the average life expectancy of humans at over a hundred years old, customs for succession had to change when it came to the throne; if not he would only be crowned when he himself was in his seventies! His father would leave him the Dragon Throne on his seventieth birthday. All executive power would be vested in him, the Crown Prince. All the military would be his to command. All, except the Shadows who remained loyal to the outgoing emperor until his death. With
the Shadows at his side, the outgoing emperor would have the final say in all military and intelligence related decisions even in retirement.
Xiao didn’t like that arrangement at all. And he still had another ten years until his father would abdicate the throne. He would be too old even then to realize his dreams of a harmonious and prosperous empire. He dreamt of his subjects, both alien and Renden, looking up to him as a virtuous father, of an era of consolidated peace where all but one religion ruled the minds of the clueless populace. He was frustrated by the incomprehension of lesser men.
These thoughts were passing through his mind when the projector blinked and conjured up a holograph of his father, the Walking God. The golden throne with magnificent silk padding made his father look small and frail. His father was not wearing the customary Imperial Cloak but a black military uniform with golden clasps on his shoulders. Military medals adorned his left breast and the yellow S-shaped golden dragon insignia was pinned on his right breast and on his cap.
“Report” was only word that came out of his downward-drooping mouth.
“May you live ten thousand years, Father. Batch eight is commencing conditioning. In six weeks, we will have one million Nikruk troops at our disposal.”
“I. I will have one million at my disposal” his father corrected him.
“Yes, father.” We’ll see about that, you dry old man. “The newer batches are even stronger and faster. We are now extracting up to twelve eggs per adult alien. Our new army is truly a hydra, with a dozen heads emerging from each one that is cut” he said proudly.
“I hear there was an instance of one of the beasts attacking an imperial officer.”
The comment knocked Xiao off his course. “Yes, we checked and found it was a faulty specimen.” How did he find out? He suddenly felt a rage to whoever reported the event. He would find out and have his intestines ripped out while he watched.
“Yet that whole batch shares the same genes. Are you saying the whole batch is faulty or perhaps our whole Nikruk army?”
“No, father...”
“Then is it your quality control process? Are you not mastering your production?”
“Our process is one hundred per cent…”
“Then what!” shouted the emperor, banging his metallic hand on the armrest.
Xiao didn’t immediately respond. “The aliens are getting resistant.”
“What do you mean?”
“They maintain a strong connection to the Great Trees regardless of physical distance. The solution we created to sever this link is working less efficiently and we now have to inject them every month instead of every six months.”
“And the intervals are getting shorter?”
“Yes, they are. On top of that, newer batches are born with stronger resistance. Batch eight is already being administered the injections every two months.”
The monarch smoothed his beard. “Perhaps this project should have been left to someone with more experience, such as Admiral Liu” he said, knowing that the mention of the old sailor would arouse jealously and urgency in his son.
“Liu is an old fool” said Xiao, barely keeping the scorn out of his voice. “I can’t understand why you trust him so much. If I were you…”
“But you are not me!” shouted again the Walking God. “And let me tell you one thing; you will never be like me! Your mother was a glorified whore who squealed like a pig when I impregnated her with you. She was so lowborn she might as well have been a butcher’s daughter. And you were born so weak and feeble that you had to be kept in an incubator for weeks. I just hope that my divine blood that I have given to you will cleanse the lowness of your mother’s. If not, perhaps there needs to be a new Crown Prince.”
“Fann? But Father, Fann is weak. Good natured, perhaps, but he lacks the ambition and drive to give your name glory.”
“Maybe that is better than incompetence.” The last comment resulted in a few seconds of sulky silence from the prince.
“Might I suggest that we accelerate plans for the invasion of Earth? With the current trends, we will have to be swift if we want to effectively incorporate the aliens in our plans” the Crown Prince finally said. “Their early intervention is the only way to ensure a swift victory, Father.”
“I will talk with my war cabinet. You, in the meantime, will find a more robust solution.” With that, the projector went blank.
He didn’t ask me what I was doing on the Nikruk home planet. He doesn’t know. This was crucial. Okay old man, I will show you my solution.
Xiao left the secure room fuming. His two bodyguards, Zhu and Mindao, followed him as he made his way through the dark corridors of the vast underground complex on Kongxing. He turned abruptly to the right and made for the zoological sector. This is where he kept some of the most ferocious carnivores in the Chinese Empire. The stench was overpowering but he had learned to appreciate it. The big and strong but insufferably dumb Zhu covered his nose and even gagged. Mindao merely frowned and twitched his nose.
Xiao led them on to a cage where an exceptionally large female tsatay was laying asleep. The prince nicknamed the carnivorous beast ‘Big Whore’ since the females of her species mated with several males at a time. The males were only half her size and should an inadequate specimen approach, she would have no problem eating his nutritious head. This one had had her poison glands removed as well as her fangs and the claws on her six enormous paws. She still weighed more than two tons, and moved at amazing speed on this low-gravity planet.
Once she got a whiff of the prince, however, she woke and began to whimper. The scars on her indicated pulse fire and lashings with a barbed geratinium whip. A young soldier hurried to him with the whip and pistol. He kneeled in front of the prince and handed over the weapons. The tsatay saw the weapons and now decided to try a more threatening stance. Standing on her hind legs, she spread out her four other legs, trying to look as big and intimidating as possible. She let out a shriek and bared her non-existent fangs.
Seemingly without fear, however, the prince and his two bodyguards entered the open cage almost casually. The whip landed on the beast’s face, blinding two of her six eyes immediately. The agony made her lose her balance and fall with a heavy thud on her back. With her four good eyes, she looked at Xiao and made another whimpering sound. The whip made another landing on her back as she rolled over. The tough skin broke and transparent liquid with red strings seeped out. The top predator brought in from Mengxing crawled weakly to the corner of the cage. When she heard Xiao’s footsteps approaching her, she turned her head towards him and made another threatening sound.
Xiao just laughed. He pointed the pulse pistol just above her heaving back so it would only graze the tough skin. His arm shook at the physical effort and sweat beads formed on his forehead and temple. Mindao observed carefully the Crown Prince for any signs of extreme fatigue. The pistol made a thudding sound and a long ditch-like wound opened on the tsatay’s back. The pain caused the beast to shriek and shake her head wildly. Xiao had a mildly amused expression on his face. Before long, the predator was so weakened that all she could do was make a soft whimpering sound. A pulse separated her from her tail, drawing more cries. With her last strength, she stood up and faced the prince.
“That’s my Big Whore” remarked Xiao. “Four men died trying to get you on this planet. Let’s make it worth their lives.”
With that he shot her again in her shoulder. Panting from the pain, the tsatay limped and turned, hiding her disabled shoulder from his blows. Another whip opened yet another wound on her grey back. Two more blows of the whip and finally, her legs gave out from under her and she tumbled to the ground, her chin impacting the gravel. She looked at the three Rendens in front of her and simply made a rumbling sound before she laid limp, tongue dangling to one side.
“That was a bit of a disappointment. I thought she still had at least another two sessions in her” said Xiao carelessly as he turned around and dropped his instruments of abuse
on the floor. “Which species shall we use as my next stress toy then, boys?”
The great shriek almost gave the prince a cardiac arrest. He screamed and covered his ears, collapsing as he plunged to the floor. As quick as lightening, Zhu shielded the prince from any attack from behind with his own broad body. Just as quick was Mindao, who drew his pistol and expertly shot the giant beast in the ear, the pulse making a pulp of its brain. For a second time, the tsatay collapsed forward, its head not two feet away from where the bodyguard was huddled over his prince.
Xiao’s face was as pale as milk and a thin film of sweat covered him. He began to shiver uncontrollably.
“Are you well, Your Highness?” asked Zhu as he gently released the prince from his grip. Mindao repeated the question.
Slowly and silently, the prince stood up. He looked at his two bodyguards whose faces were only showing concern. Behind the concern, however, he saw mockery. They were laughing at how he had cowered from the beast. They were going to whisper to each other how he was just a weakling boy. He, the divine Crown Prince! He felt like having their eyes gouged out as well as their teeth. But alas, it was true that they had saved his life.
“Not a word of this shall exit this cage” he said to them threateningly. Zhu and Mindao bowed their heads in acknowledgement. “If I hear a word of this from anyone, neither of you will escape my wroth.”
He grabbed the whip once again and started to tear the tsatay’s hide into tatters.
“You whore! I killed you. Yes, I killed you!” he shouted in a high-pitched voice while making a sound that was either crying or laughing.
The soldier who had brought the weapons came strolling back, wondering what all the commotion was about. Mindao signalled him to leave quickly and quietly lest the prince decide to vent his anger at him.
Chapter 27: The Assassin
‘The Special Intelligence and Defence Organization (SIADO) should never have existed. The Shadows, as they are known, are indeed the most well-trained assassins and spies in the galaxy. Selected at the age of five, they are brain-washed to worship the New Han Emperor and destroy everything in his way. Such a highly trained, well informed organization will, however, always develop its own agenda…’ - Han Rhong-zi, Chinese historian, great-grandson of Emperor Han Ching-Diu,