by Piper Stone
The third phase of the compound was open, various terraces and entertainment rooms able to hold dozens if not hundreds of people at a time. The work that had gone into the facility was impressive.
We were finally led out into an atrium of sorts, the ceiling a crystal-clear substance. The same sound of cawing birds could be heard coming from every direction, their sweet lilting voices indicating happiness. The tropical foliage positioned throughout, including surrounding a beautiful stone fountain centerpiece were luscious, many of them flowering in bright, vibrant colors.
“Amazing,” I couldn’t help but whisper as I tipped my head toward the light. The detail on the architecture was remarkable, the structure unlike anything I’d ever seen.
“Thank you, Renault, that will be all.” My father approached.
Renault gave a slight bow, much like the others had done before then turned stiffly, her head held high as she walked away.
“A soldier, Thomas?” Xander asked, no doubt purposely using my father’s first name to set him off.
If my father even noticed there was no indication.
“We have many soldiers, Xander.”
“Why, if you are friendly with the Zatans?”
My father chuckled, pressing his hand on Xander’s back. “You are intelligent and hardheaded in your perseverance. I would find it fascinating the learn more about your species. I know very little about you or your kind. However, I was told that you betrayed both your people and members of our government, the ones you were hired to provide assistance to. I believe that landed you in an American prison.”
“My kind. And just how did you get this information, Thomas?” Xander stepped away, breaking the connection.
My father curled his fist, a hint of annoyance crossing his face. “Everyone who is brought to this planet has a record. An excellent deal made with the Zatans. Rid Earth of the heinous monsters who’d committed some of the most atrocious crimes. As you might imagine, there wasn’t a country on Earth or a planet who didn’t appreciate emptying their prisons.”
“What about the innocent women?” I asked.
“A necessity, but I assure you, these women had no purpose.”
I had no idea what to say at first, the level of anger and disgust I felt blinding. “The majority of those women you speak of were humans. They weren’t possessions to be tossed away, Father. My God, what the hell happened to you? These brutal aliens that you forged a deal with stole human lives, imprisoning them. Just. Like. Me. But I was chosen for a reason.”
He grew more uncomfortable, even though I could tell he’d been compelled by either the promise of wealth or something else.
“I assure you, Katarina, the women will eventually have a better life.”
“You have to fucking be kidding me,” Xander snarked. “You obviously haven’t seen the prison cells on this planet or witnessed the colossal gladiator games. You definitely have no idea how savage the Zatans are or the way they treat their women.”
“The king has his proclivities, much like every one of us,” my father retorted.
“Jesus. What happened to you? You were my hero, my everything.” I heard the anguish in my voice and turned away. He didn’t deserve to hear me breaking down.
“Things are different than they were when you were a child, Katarina. Our world changed after the Great War. Even with peace, there is always a wretched underbelly, men and women who will stop at nothing to gain power.”
“Just like you,” I managed. “All that talk about saving the world, fear of mutated diseases coming back with a vengeance. Were you planning on using your find in order to gain more power?”
He smacked his hand on the desk. “You don’t understand!”
Xander moved to within inches of him. “Yes, I think we do. There is no such thing as humanity, an attribute your own daughter speaks of often.”
“Maybe not, Xander. Maybe Earth should be destroyed,” my father huffed, finally looking away from Xander’s harsh glare. “The criminals were used to help in aspects of building not only the Zatan facility that you were imprisoned in, but also rebuilding portions of their planet. In turn, they were promised freedom, a new way of life. The king will eventually find husbands for the female prisoners. They will have a good life.”
“A good life. Maybe one day you can explain what that actually means,” I said bitterly. “Since you seem to know so much about the Zatans, tell me this. What happened to their planet? Why the hell are they going through all this, the games and the threats to Earth?”
“War, much like our own country. They have their share of enemies just like we did.” He took a deep breath, turning his head toward Xander. “From what I’ve been told there were many lives lost, their planet in near ruins. Very tragic.”
“We still have enemies, Thomas. And this bullshit you were told was by King Rajah?” Xander snarled, his chest rising and falling.
“I was made aware of what your people did to the Zatans,” my father answered.
“How dare you, Father. You have no idea what happened on Xander’s planet, how many people died,” I snapped.
My father continued walking, a contrite look on his face.
I couldn’t believe this.
“Women and children were slaughtered, our cities destroyed as well. Then we thought there was peace, but the Zatans were working behind our backs for decades, attempting to find a way to completely annihilate my kind,” Xander hissed. “I’m curious, Thomas. Why can’t their remaining people rebuild their cities? You also never answered my question regarding the soldiers. If this planet touts pure peace, then the soldiers seem unnecessary.”
I knew Xander was trying to goad him into answers.
“Things aren’t always as they seem, Xander. You should know that.”
“Yes, that much I do believe. Our belongings. I want them. Now,” Xander demanded.
My father gave him a sideways glance then nodded. “Very well. You’re a true soldier. Your items will be placed in your quarters.”
By that point, a massive dining table came into view, at least two dozen seats on both sides, the majority filled by members of the compound. There were no uniforms of any kind, their attire colorful and bright while being functional.
“No need for surprise, Katarina. While we are a working people, we celebrate everything that we can. Please, take your seats with me at the head of the table.” He remained standing behind the chair, glancing up and down each side. “May I present my daughter, Dr. Katarina Garens and the man responsible for getting her here safely, Lieutenant Xander Aska of the planet Cryton.”
The standing ovation left a bad taste in my mouth. I’d yet to graduate, allowing me to use the term doctor. Certain protocol obviously didn’t matter to them. They also had venom in their eyes when they looked at Xander.
My father had somehow found out I was working in secrecy, knew I must have discovered his journals.
There was no discussion of the journal we’d found or their work with or around the Zatans. A mere question and my father shut it down. The conversation was pleasant, the food absolutely delicious, but the sickening feeling that everything occurring within the facility was fake, even evil remained.
Xander pushed back from the table first, his roughhewn body hovering over the aging men and woman. “While I’m certain that I can speak for Katarina in saying thank you for the hospitality, the time for bullshit is over. We need answers and we need them now.” He slammed his hand on the table, the clinking sound of dishes tumbling together mixing with gasps from several dinner guests.
“That’s enough!” my father snapped. “You will not act this way in front of my daughter.”
I’d finally had enough.
“I agree,” I stated as I rose to a standing position. “I may be your child by blood, Thomas, but that doesn’t mean I’m your daughter. I don’t know you and while your friends may have been spying on me, testing my body for some reason as they developed a plan to kidnap me, you cert
ainly do not know me. It’s obvious that you need my help. I’ll venture a guess that your experiments failed, and you believe I’m the only one who can provide scientific assistance.”
The shock on several faces gave me at least one answer, the look on my father’s another. He knew damn good and well what I’d been working on.
My father took his time wiping his mouth and pushing his plate aside, finally standing as if nothing was wrong. “We will talk in my office.”
This time, my father was the one who led us through a series of locked doors, two men following us like lap dogs. His office was a hybrid, a portion dedicated to a smaller laboratory, the other a traditional desk and several chairs. There was also a bookshelf with actual real books, the scent of leather and old paper filtering into my nostrils. My father had never forsaken the traditional method of education, his beloved collection of scientific journals and textbooks one I’d been fascinated with as a child.
I walked toward them while Xander scanned the room. I could also see the amusement on my father’s eyes.
“You remember,” he said.
“How? Everything you owned was boxed, stored in some unknown facility.” I turned toward him, shaking my head several times. “Of course. Aunt Chelsea.” Not everything. I’d found his journals before my dear aunt had been ordered to pack up his belongings.
“Don’t blame your aunt for the requirement to keep you in the dark. She was given a choice, continue living her life the way she preferred, or lose everything.”
“Why? How did the Zatans get to you?”
“You were too young to understand what I was working on.”
I walked closer. “Curing diseases was only a small part of your job. Wasn’t it? Keeping several samples just in case, allowing you to work on their mutations was another. You wanted to play God.”
“Was I high on power? Yes, but I assure you that ridding the world of cancer as well as several other lesser known diseases was my greatest achievement and one I was proud of. What no one but your mother knew was that soon after my discovery, I was contacted by the government with an offer. I had no choice but to listen to what they had to say.”
“You were threatened?” Xander asked, amusement in his voice.
“Yes, I was threatened!” my father snapped, almost becoming unraveled.
“Why is that, Father? You were exalted, hailed a hero. Why would they threaten you?” I folded my arms, giving him a slight smile.
“There had been certain dalliances in my earlier life that would have destroyed my marriage and my career. I couldn’t allow that to happen. I’m not proud of what I did. All the government officials wanted at the time was for me to work on one project, highly experimental and very secretive. Had I known what they were planning, I would have never agreed. I was told that there were enemies determined to destroy America, not the entire world.”
“What did you do that was so horrible, Father?” I knew the man wouldn’t answer.
True to form, he merely gave me a haughty look. How dare he act as if he was so entitled.
“Allow me to venture a guess. They required your skills in order to develop an entirely new weapon, a chemical undetectable by either human or machine, but highly deadly. One that could be easily morphed into whatever disease was needed to finish the job.” Xander hissed after making the statement.
My father exhaled and moved toward his desk, sitting down on the edge. “Everything was very top secret. Men I’d worked side by side with for years disappeared because they talked. I knew exactly what the government was capable of and that pissed me off. I didn’t like being threatened and while I performed my duties for two years, I also managed to produce various serums that would cure the effects of the disease, even mutated cells. All in the basement of our home. All recorded on journals just in case. Do you know what this means? The diseases could never be used for killing again. At least on humans.”
Xander shook his head.
“You kept your secret project hidden knowing the government would be pissed,” I said casually. My father was certainly not a stupid man. “By that point, the Zatans had already arrived and they’d been infected either by accident or on purpose. Your cure wouldn’t allow for Earth’s desire to crush its enemy.”
“My brilliant daughter. Yes. The Zatans made their appearance the first time right after the last Great War almost forty years ago. I had no idea until years later. That was one of the reasons I was hired. As you can imagine, given the state of the economy and the debilitating conditions in which so many people across the world were forced to live, their arrival was kept secret. If discovered, there would have been mass hysteria. From what I discovered much later, no one knew what the Zatans wanted at first. They arrived with little fanfare, unthreatening in every manner.”
“They were scouting for a new world in which to call home but instead, they were given a disease that would eventually thrust their entire species into extermination,” Xander said as he laughed. “My guess is that was after the bloody war between our worlds.”
“Undoubtedly, Xander, although they certainly weren’t up front about their mission to anyone. They disappeared for almost ten years then returned. On that occasion, they had requests. They needed help. You are right in that their first visit allowed various diseases to be brought on board their ships. My belief is that it wasn’t by accident. Since they’d never experienced anything like Ebola and typhoid fever, they had no way of knowing the catastrophic effects. Within ten years, one fourth of their population died. Their greatest scientists had been unable to find any kind of cure. The epidemic was growing, time running out. Our people were responsible.”
“So they risked another trip to find answers as well as to seek revenge,” I half whispered.
“Yes. From what I learned, they made their first threats if Earth didn’t help them. Teams of scientists were offered great wealth if they would go back to Zatan with them. I don’t think it was by choice. Over two hundred scientists agreed or were coerced, leaving their families and lucrative careers in order to offer their expertise. Sadly, they were never heard from again and neither were the Zatans until their arrival just after your eighth birthday.”
“That’s when serious threats were made.” Xander moved beside me, his eyes never leaving the other two men in the room.
“The world as we knew it was just placed on collision course straight to hell. By that point, my latest work was widely known within scientific circles.” My father lowered his head, taking several deep breaths. “The leaders of several countries met in secrecy, developing two distinct plans. One included allowing additional scientists to be coerced into going with them to this planet, where the king and the other rulers had already been placed.”
I shot my father a look. “In order to continue killing off their species.” The plan was brilliant.
“Absolutely. To finish what they’d started.” My father laughed. “They felt they had no choice. I did go along with this at first. The government is very convincing.”
“Something doesn’t ring true here. If you were required to use the mutated diseases to annihilate them, then what the hell happened?” Xander’s question was more of a demand. “Why didn’t you finish your mission?”
My father took a minute before answering. “Because I had a change of heart after coming here, discussions with King Rajah. I didn’t want to be the one responsible for killing an entire species. Neither did any of the men and women I was assigned with. So, I attempted to actually cure them. However, by then, the diseases as we knew them had altered dramatically given the Zatans’ DNA structure.”
“You betrayed your own planet. Fascinating, Father.”
“You mean the same planet that was prepared to betray their own people?” he retorted.
“All right. I’ll accept that. I’m curious how you contacted your sister and managed to keep tabs on me.”
“I still have certain connections on Earth, people I trust. I was labeled a traitor,
which is why you couldn’t find out any information on me.”
“But they had your formulas,” Xander whispered.
“And at the same time, the Zatans found out they’d been double-crossed,” I said in passing. “Including the arrival of members of the Cryton species.”
“They thought we were working with the humans,” Xander added.
He nodded several times. “Yes. That’s when the demands for human lives were made.”
“In exchange for not annihilating almost everyone on Earth, they required fertile women to breed and begin altering the course of history, hoping to begin a new life here.” I could barely form the words.
“Except they still plan on taking over Earth,” Xander stated, looking back and forth between us. “Why the hell not?”
“Yes.” When my father lifted his head, I could see tears in his eyes. “I’m afraid so. King Rajah has no reason to trust after the various military ships arrived on this planet, attempting to assassinate him.”
“You really want us to believe that you willingly gave up your life on Earth and your daughter to work alongside the Zatans,” Xander hissed. “You really expect us to believe that horseshit?”
“Why is that so implausible? It was all over the news that there were skirmishes in other countries, fear growing that there would be another horrific war. I never intended on leaving my daughter. Never! By then, it was too late, the wheels in motion.” My father moved toward a cabinet, pulling out several glasses and a bottle of some kind of liquor.
“But you did, Father. You left me thinking you were dead.” I fought the burning tears.
“I had no choice. I had to go. When I was required to fake my death, leaving my only daughter there on Earth, I was bitter. Angry. I knew that whatever the government was planning would place everyone on Earth in danger. I refused to go along with the project. Then the threats became worse, including some made on your life, Katarina. I felt I had no choice. I was forced to go along with the plan, but I refused to be a victim.”
