The Mind made a roll calli as the first act of the Conclave and available Omeyns signalled their participation by popping up on the circular holograph floor before the Omeyn in Attendance. Some Omeyns signalled their apologies with explanations and disappeared; others melted down to bright icons representing their locations on the floor that identified their muted attendance. In the centre of the bronze circle a holographic Omeyn rose up and popped out, jarring repeatedly as the Mind pinged her location without success. The Omeyn in Attendance noted that the Omeyn MuneMei iteration for the mission to annex planet Earth was missing. It was cause for alarm if an Omeyn had gone missing unexpectedly.
The Mind continued attempts to reach and include the Omeyn from Earth but eventually timed out and reported her missing. The icons of her sisters jumped up all over the floor in great anger to voice their outrage that some crime could have befallen one of their number. Explanations were demanded and reprisals were required immediately. Nothing could be more important than maintaining the imperial rule of the Omeyns. If they were seen to be falling short by their weakness, who knew what liberties would be taken by the lower castes across the Empire? Holograms rose to be recognised and fell back as one Omeyn after another voiced their consternation. In truth it was a self-serving chorus as each identity was physically identical and thought much alike. This helped to conclude that nothing could be more serious than an offence against one of their number when indeed they were all the same. They emotionally agreed that the most decisive action should be taken; all identified with the horror and loss of grace of being interfered with by a lower life form in the execution of their duties.
The Omeyn in Attendance coordinated the demands of the Conclave and the Mind generated alternate solutions to find and return the missing Omeyn. Spargar workers rushed around the periphery generating response scenarios. Eventually only one solution emerged with the highest likelihood of success; one that could be deployed with minimum disruption; one with a proven historical success rate of fixing desperate issues. The sisterhood were reluctant but eventually talked themselves into agreeing this would work and could be seen as a quick tactical solution to this very specific problem. A Rakul MuneMeiii would be generated and given the sole task of finding and returning the missing Omeyn MuneMei safely and quickly. The Rakul has the sociopathic disposition of the Omeyns elevated to loftier degrees of disregard for all other races of human beings with the exception of his own slave races across a small number of planets that worship him. The constant reassurance and reinforcement of the Omeyn sisterhood was replaced in the male Rakul form by total self-belief. The importance of order in the rule of the Conclave of the Omeyns that was such a controlling influence in the Spargar Empire is changed in the Rakul form to a wanton usage of the lower Spargar castes before even considering his attitude towards people beyond the Empire. These severely antisocial tendencies would mean that the Rakul would need to be constrained after he had fulfilled his task, but that was well understood. A Rakul had to be ‘retired’ swiftly once his mission was accomplished.
The Mind accepted the will of the Conclave without question and set about the biological engineering required to generate the Rakul form of the MuneMei deity. It was many decades since the last Rakul had been called but the Mind retained the code to produce a brand new version in all its flawed magnificence. By the end of the business agenda of this Conclave the Mind belched forth a Rakul from its cloning tank to stand naked and new on the holographic floor surrounded by the fascinated gazes of the attendant Omeyn MuneMeis. The sisters had arisen from their icons and now manoeuvred their holograms subtly for a better view of the Rakul. He was very obviously a male sibling of an Omeyn, more powerful of body, taller, more beaked in features and ruggedly ridged on the centre line of the skull. His musculature was impressive, skin flawless, direct from the rendering vats, delivered to the Conclave at his peak maturity without defect or injury. The Omeyns were impressed despite themselves though they made no remark. The new Rakul bowed slightly to acknowledge the Omeyn in Attendance in command of the physical gathering on the top floor of the Spyre. The rest of the Conclave of the Omeyns continued to regard him from their holographic invocations with mild discomfort, safe in their great distance from the capital city Braganza across the far-flung Empire. A Rakul could not be looked down upon like a lesser Spargar caste, but he was definitely considered to be an uncultured and more primitive relation.
The Omeyn in Attendance observed Rakul from her small raised dais across the crowded floor. The upper echelon Spargar caste workers around the walls paused to stare at the legendary entity that had been reborn before them. They were unremarkable in their plain dark clothing over their thin bodies. The Rakul thought them puny. They could surmise this from his glower alone and they returned chastened to their workstations. The window walls of this command centre hundreds of stories high were invisible force fields. Banks of screens seemingly hung in the air with their operators adjacent to the great drop. Rakul drew from the energy of the whole situation to thrill further power into his new body. His muscles pumped, his memory banks fired up like a stray spark getting into a firework factory – remembering everything from all his past iterations.
The Omeyn in Attendance addressed the room and the wider sisterhood, “This Conclave notes that the Omeyn MuneMei on Planet Earth has gone missing and no longer responds to the Conclave roll call. The unity of this Conclave has demanded explanations and reprisals. This disappearance is an outrage that cannot go unpunished. This Conclave regrets the inconvenience of calling a Rakul,” the Omeyn in Attendance paused and tilted her head down minutely in regret at the unspoken self-criticism of their inability to solve this crisis by Omeyn management alone. “In an emergency the laser focus and power of the Rakul is well known and is the right tool for this task.” The Omeyn turned to Rakul and addressed him directly. “The disappearance of an Omeyn in the disposition of her duties on the target planet Earth will be investigated and she will be returned to us. You are to collect the forces you require and then find and retrieve the lost Omeyn, without interfering with normal Spargar operations here or across the Empire. Specifically, you are to be sensitive in your actions on planet Earth, which is as yet undeclared territory that must soon fall under Spargar rule. Your actions must not delay or endanger our progress there.”
The Conclave of the Omeyns may have regretted the necessity to generate a Rakul as it had the whiff of some lacking in their abilities, but in this emergency a Rakul could be justified simply as the appropriate genetic form of the MuneMei dynasty to meet the need; family differences need not be aired with the rest of the Empire. The disappearance of an Omeyn in the disposition of her duties warranted the use of such a scourge; any collateral damage caused by a Rakul could be justified in the circumstances.
The Rakul took note of his orders but the Conclave was still left questioning his arrogance; had he agreed to the command or simply acknowledged he had heard it? His very first words came easily and simply, “What was the Omeyn’s last known location? Who were her protectors?” He received his answers from the voice of the Mind supporting the Conclave and he prepared to leave. In the confusion there was a comic moment when he appeared to expect to stride from the room quite naked as if nothing here really mattered. A cloak needed to be found to bind the new Rakul into the formalities of the commanding Omeyns. Rakul was their brother after all but the Omeyn in Attendance would not actually touch her newly formed brother. An unwitting Spargar agent was pressed into service and he hesitantly approached with a cloak in the novel act of dressing a Rakul. Rakul’s look showed his indifference to the garb and the life of the attendant, but he took no offence as the robe was wrapped over his shoulders and he continued to leave.
*
As he appeared from the generative tanks to stand before the Conclave, Rakul’s consciousness swam out of a muddy fog to regain control, first of his mind and then reaching out to his body, testing its capabilities an
d strength. His last recollection flooded back, of a battle scene on a dusty red planet; it came to him with the full force of a waking nightmare. His elite forces were spearheading the Spargar front against an uprising of human indigenes that had almost repulsed the occupying Spargar administration supervised by a local Omeyn. She had been nearly overrun and a hasty Conclave of the Omeyns had reluctantly generated a Rakul to save the day. Rakul and his warrior caste were in the act of crushing the resistance that had been winning this battle until he had arrived on the scene. The tribes that were caked in the red dust of their planet had previously threatened to overwhelm the hard-pressed crescent of Spargar forces in their dark silver hazmat suits and ovoid helms. Rakul pressed through the Spargar line until he was in the van and strode out to the enemy, striking them low with his ixwas, short fighting lances, one in either hand, which blurred into hemispheres of blows to either side of Rakul’s snarling visage. His warriors spread out in a narrow ‘V’ formation to his rear, biting into the enemy front ranks and pushing their Rakul through to the rear of the enemy’s battle line.
Rakul turned to check his position after bursting through his enemies and finding no further resistance. He had reached the relative quiet of the enemy’s rear. From here he could fan his elite force along the line and re-engage from the enemy’s rear. He paused and considered that he could actually escape the will of the Omeyns by driving on from here to the spacecraft waiting at the edge of the field and make good his escape with his chosen warriors. Some powerful force made him grimace in pain at that treasonous thought but he clung to the hope of his freedom. A moment later he was howling to his troops to follow, and racing on towards the waiting starship. His troops followed him exultantly, snarling to deter pursuit as they picked up on their master’s excited will for release. Rakul stopped before the craft, sweeping round so his cloak swirled about him; he was not being followed. He started up the ramp into the dim lighting of the resting spacecraft. His last triumphal thought was that he would escape the will of the Omeyns at last and blaze his own piratical track across the galaxy outwith the controls of the Conclave of the Omeyns. The red dust of the planet on the loading ramp rose as they tramped up the incline and concealed the drugged cloud released by the craft on his entry. Rakul slumped into unconsciousness among his men.
He woke now to the realisation of his failed escape from the bonds of the Omeyns on his last incarnation and that he had been recalled before the Conclave atop the Spyre in Braganza, summoned to their bidding once more. This was sweet slavery in that he thrived on their challenges, but oh so repetitive, as every summons proved again his singular capabilities beyond the rest of the Spargar Empire. His head slowly rotated to take in the scene of the local Omeyn MuneMei addressing her closest workers and the banks of screens of The Mind biological computer connecting via the network to the Conclave of the Omeyns spread across the host of worlds under Spargar dominion. As he regained his senses it gave him some satisfaction that the Omeyn in Attendance and all her holographic sisters craned their necks to wonder up at him, head and shoulders taller as he was. Most here had not witnessed the summoning of a Rakul in their lifetimes and the Omeyns’ distaste at his arrival was palpable.
Rakul felt the fire of his ichors, which renewed his vital essence, circulating and intoxicating with a fizz of excess oxygen in his bright crimson new blood, demanding action and satisfaction at a physical level. He heard the Omeyn declaring to the meeting that they had summoned a Rakul to take on the mission to recover the missing Omeyn from planet Earth. Her tone was a trifle shrill, he considered.
A Rakul?! he thought in response to her words. I am The Rakul, he thought, though the Omeyns did not know this. They thought each Rakul iteration was new and unrelated to the past. He knew though that there had only ever been one Rakul, with continuity of memory and purpose through each incarnation. He kept his own counsel on this knowledge while he processed his bitter failure to escape their control in his prior lifetime. He must discover what new opportunities might arise as they called him to this mission, which they could not fulfil themselves in their weakness.
He had nodded at the Omeyn in Attendance’s instructions so as to be deliberately inscrutable. He only needed to know two things: “What was the Omeyn’s last known location? Who were her protectors?” He collected that information and left. One of their Zarnha agents risked his life in the attempt to dress him on his exit but it mattered little. He would gather his forces and leave for planet Earth.
*
Immediately after Rakul had exited the command area, the first remote Omeyn vocalised her frustration with his arrogance. It needed no plethora of supporting voices as the commune of the Omeyns thought with the same mind and each felt the same annoyance. Each Omeyn of the Conclave was an iteration of the original tyrant, binding the future of the Spargar Empire to her original vision.
“It matters not,” stated the Omeyn in Attendance. “Rakul is the most straightforward method to find and return our missing Omeyn while we turn our attention to more complex matters. We will constrain him once more when he has achieved his goal.”
“And what if one day he escapes our control and builds his own empire? Even challenges us to rule over Spargar?” An Omeyn voiced the fear of them all over the network.
“These concerns arise every time we invoke a Rakul, and every time, we have no issue. It is impossible for him to overturn our dynasty. But we do need to consider the threat anew so we are prepared.”
*
The following morning Rakul piloted a flight of five DMF drive Spargar spacecraft from an oval space harbour platform atop a tower adjacent to the Spyre. Each craft carried a flight crew and accommodation space for 200 or so warrior troops. The craft left its docking area in a vertical exit funnel containing many other ships all weaving up into space, gyrating like a slowly twisting chimney into a brittle Braganza mackerel sky. Three other distinct twisters of aerial craft writhed like smoke into the heavens from different origins on Braganza’s towers; one other for departing craft and two for arrivals. Rakul would need to populate his flotilla with warriors from one of his own colony planets located remotely in the Hyades star range. The Omeyns allowed him to keep up to six colonies within Spargar sovereign space, providing the warlike races living there were not allowed to plunder other worlds.
Rakul set a course for a hot yellow star he selected for its similarity to the star system Sol that hosted planet Earth. His destination was the planet Jarlanka, which had not been harvested of warriors in his recent missions. His five Spargar craft popped through a warp node above Spargan to burst out of dark matter adjacent to the planet Jarlanka hot in its close orbit to the yellow star. Jarlanka presented tiny white ice caps at its poles ringed by deep blue oceans. The equator was girdled by many medium-sized orange continents mottled in dusky olive savannah with intricately crinkled coasts. Rakul’s small flotilla gathered from the safe separation distances of their warp exit points and formed a tight delta wing formation. As they joined, Rakul’s central flagship assumed control of all five, functioning as a single large craft. This accentuated the majesty of their size and purpose. The huge delta wing dropped directly through Jarlanka’s upper atmosphere with a plume of fire and smoke marking its fall until it was plainly visible hanging above the capital city of Murkal, where it braked and stopped.
The cities of Jarlanka sweltered in a hot and constant climate since the land masses were tight to the equator and the rotation of the planet was locked by its twin moons, Iwona and Ilona. There were low mountain ranges inland separated from the coast by dusty farmland for the growing of arable crops, and orchards of wizened fruit trees. Vineyards thrived and Jarlankans competed avidly to produce the richest red wines, which Jarlanka was famed for.
Jarlankan cities promoted a martial culture where athletics and martial arts blended together. The countryside gave up the flower of its youth to join the armies and sports academies that flourished in th
e towns. Rakul maintained a quasi religious elite that controlled the development of athletes into soldiers through a series of levels such that only the very best rose to the highest units. They ensured Jarlankan civilisation incorporated the latest military technologies from the whole Spargar Empire but their primary interest was to advance the theory and skills of war at the personal level. Real wars broke out between the continents on Jarlanka sporadically in the heat of their politics and climate as a result. Such wars were short and seldom disastrous as all races on Jarlanka had a similar standard of living and held the same cultural values. As a result their warlike instincts were mostly directed towards individual achievement in a host of sporting events where winning was a thinly veiled proxy for actual conflict. Over time these sports had become less violent so that in the present age the contests were fierce but mortalities were few. Jarlankans preferred to live in their cities in the height of their youthful prowess, later converting the wealth they had accumulated to purchase estates in the countryside where they could spend their retirement years at ease. Each city had one main arena for sporting contests and many subsidiary arenas that fed the enthusiasm of the population to advance their martial skills.
The main arena in Murkal was a magnificent high-rise oval with raked banks of seats up to towering colonnades of apricot stone decorated in honour of the great Rakul and his Jarlankan generals down the ages. Adjacent to the main arena were the administrative buildings, long rectangular buildings with pillared arcades that afforded shade for casual meetings and formal debate in the open air. These civic buildings were separated from each other by broad assembly spaces where low blocks of rose marble provided hard seating between ranks of miniature cypress, purple maqua and olive trees. Jarlankans were accustomed to spending considerable time outdoors in the dry heat to debate council or sporting matters.
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