Age of the Marcks

by Gregory Benson

  They were all aware of Dispor’s notoriety. The Dispor moon was a forced labor prison facility that mined scaberious, the active element required to supply self-sustained power to the individual Marck unit. There were only life sentences on Dispor, and to keep prisoners working, they used their families as collateral.

  “It’s also located in Sector 38; that’s outside the main system, and only accessible through gammac corridor portal Delta, which I don’t need to remind you is heavily fortified by the Marck fifth attack fleet,” Kerriah snapped.

  “Krath, if you believe Creedith is dead, then you truly don’t know him as I do. To your concern, young Kerriah, yes, and I am certain you are waiting for me to say how I have planned to circumvent this obstacle, in which case, you would be correct. The power that I have harnessed here has given me the ability to deploy modified probes, which can focus that same power from my parallaxer all the way to the line of sight of the probe. This is the same process that I used to open the door for you to escape here from Troika.” Plexo, in a rare moment, looked genuinely excited as he explained his most prolific creation. His audience, however, looked at him with their own personal expression of disbelief. “You do understand what the implication of this is?”

  Kerriah leaned forward as if to get a closer listen to what he was explaining. “Are you telling us that you can jump us, physically, to almost anywhere your drones are looking? You do know that the Marcks have the X88T prototype that I attempted unsuccessfully to steal that can jump without the portals as well?” Kerriah said.

  Plexo squinted over her second question. “Well, to answer your first question, yes, in a way. The main limitation was the power required for a long-range jump, and until now, it took the large, stationary mag infusers of the gammac corridors to create the power required for injection into the point-to-point topology. Now, it is also portable if you will.” His excitement built further, and he talked faster and with less care. “Further, I have devised a way to alter the power signature as not to alert Marck detection systems.” His excitement suddenly stopped, and his expression went from a look of elation to that of someone that just took a hard shot in the stomach. He cleared his throat and sat back straight, hoping that he could plow through his clumsy words. “As for the Marck prototype ship, I’m not certain of its authenticity. To be honest, I do not believe they have the ability to design something with that level of complexity.”

  Kerriah just sat back and smiled. “Well, I beg to differ.”

  However, Krath did not let him off the hook for his slip and pressed him sternly. “Plexo, what exactly do tya have here? What is this energy source tya are keep flappin’ about? Don’t tell me tya have an orb here, cause tya know tya ain’t supposed to have one of those.” Krath grinned.

  CHAPTER 15

  P lexo sighed, giving up on the charade. “Well, just between friends . . . I might as well show you what I have. Please arise.” He stepped off his seat and called out, “Core passageway.”

  The area blurred out and went dark for an instant then a high-pitched whistle filled the air, as well as a deep chill. The cold air gusted against them, and the sensation of a sharp drop filled their bellies. As the illumination returned, they were no longer seated in the main lab area; rather, they stood in a large, round space that was filled with a deep emerald glow. The glow flowed from a clear dome that sat upon a plinth in the center of the room. Six nearly transparent spiral pipes pulled in the emerald glow as they floated around the dome. There was a constant vibration, subtle yet noticeable.

  “This is where my laboratories and this ship acquire their power. This is what I found.” Plexo opened his arms toward the dome as if to present the glowing object to a large audience.

  Krath’s face scrunched and his jaw turned to a bitter scowl. “That’s the Green Orb of Thale, the Hybors’ Orb. How did tya get your hands on that?”

  “It wasn’t easy or simple, but had I not liberated the orb, it would likely be in the hands of Zearic.”

  Kerriah began having feelings of suspicion over Plexo’s motives. After the decommissioning of the Tolagons, only a select few had knowledge of the orbs’ secret locations, and their memories of these locations were supposedly erased. This gave her an escalating distrust for Plexo.

  “I think you should explain exactly how you came to possess this orb,” she demanded.

  Plexo smiled with apprehension. “Very well, and I would expect such an inquiry, of course,” By his own reasoning, he was a Luminar, and it was his people that gifted the orbs to the Oro System, so who better to be its caretaker? Who should have possession of it now, if not a Luminar emissary? He had some difficulty masking the hesitancy in his voice, and it must have shown through somewhat as he began. “For you to understand, I must first explain to you what happened to Centran, the last Tolagon of Thale, or at least how the tale was told to me.”

  Plexo folded his arms and took a nearby seat as if to give a lengthy tale. “At the close of what was eventually to be referred to as the second Thraxon War, Centran had just finished the concealment of the green orb just as he was decreed. After his discharging, he impatiently returned to his home with the intention to live out his remaining years with his family, enjoying a much quieter existence. However, when he arrived at his lagoon-based dwelling, his family was not as he had expected.

  “His children, who at the time of his arrival were apparently swimming about in the shallows near his dwelling, took notice to Centran’s arrival and swarmed over to him with the eagerness one might expect from children of a returning war hero. When he reached down to crest his eldest son’s forehead, he immediately knew something was amiss.

  “The child’s head was cold and rigid, as was that of his other children. When the child looked upon him, his suspicion was validated. The child’s eyes glared a yellow flash, and from his mouth shot a cerebral conduit that pierced through his neck in an attempt to merge with Centran’s central nervous system. Centran was able to withdraw before it could make a proper connection, but his other children lanced his limbs with their fingertips, bringing him to his knees.

  “He was a battle-proven Tolagon, so even in his wounded state, he was capable of fighting off and eliminating the impostors. He cried out to his wife only to discover that she was already standing upon him. She spat a cerebral conduit through the back of his head and pulled thoughts, but what they were looking for was not there.”

  As he spoke, Plexo leaned forward, pulled a clear bead from thin air, and twirled it around his fingers while he stared intently as he told his story.

  “The concealment agents that were commissioned by the UMO to ensure orbs were hidden had already purged his memory of the whereabouts and the final resting place of the orb. Of course, the agents had vanished as well. I believe Zearic killed them for not revealing the orbs’ locations. No one knows for sure, but without these agents, the whereabouts of the orbs would be lost.” Plexo shook his head with disgust.

  “The whole idea of dismantling the Tolagons was so poorly thought out and clearly born from desperation.” He sighed, realizing that he had allowed himself to become emotionally sidetracked.

  Crix still listened with his purest attention, eager to learn more. “I am sorry, Crix; allow me to continue. When Centran was brought to Zearic still alive, he attempted things of immeasurable cruelty to extract the orb’s location from him. In the end, Centran passed unintentionally, leaving Zearic with only the location of Theodo, his ward. The agents had neglected the fact that Centran had a ward, and though this ward was not allowed access to the council or knowledge of its location, the location of the orb was indeed revealed to him.

  “Fortunately, the ward told me of the green orb’s location before he was forced by torturous methods to tell Zearic.” Plexo flattened his palm and placed the bead in the middle of it. “Also, I had the equipment required to retrieve it from its hiding place. Allow me to show you.”

  The bead slowly started to spin and hastened in speed unti
l a holographic image ballooned up from his hand, displaying a world swooshed with shadowy clouds swirling overhead and vast oceans tossing into waves of a violent storm. The image was so vibrant and detailed that one would think they were viewing it through the viewport of a ship on site.

  “Ahhh, home,” Krath mumbled, and Plexo nodded but remained silent as the image changed, pushing inward to a pinpointed location on the surface of Thale.

  Clouds passed and swooshed out of view as the watery surface neared. Dark, rocky spires emerged like apparitions in the night, rising high, each coated with a smooth layer of crimson moss. The crooked spires littered the surface breaking through the murky green waters below like slender spear tips plunging through their targets. Their view neared a spire that was broken in half and then continued into the waters below. The waters were dark and visibility was limited. Giant bushy ferns that disappeared into the depths swished around like giant fingers looking for something to grab.

  Krath chuckled to himself with a whistle of an old man mixed in his voice. “Watch out for those suckers; one tiny brush up against them, and they’ll coil tya down so deep that even the glow fish won’t find tya.”

  The image continued to follow the spire deeper and deeper as the base began to widen, and the sea life appeared even more bizarre. Needle-like worm creatures shot out from the sides of the spire almost as if they were attempting to attack. Krath snickered again. The view kept going deeper and deeper until there was no visible surface light, and after a few seconds, a tiny, green speck of light appeared deep in the distance. The light occasionally shimmered as though something passed in front of it. Their view approached the light. It became larger, and its illumination gave detail to its surroundings with an eerie emerald hue.

  The green orb sat nestled in a circular trench at the base of the spire; a trench dug partially into the rocky side. Plexo spoke as the image stopped on the orb.

  “This is the deepest part of Thale, and at these depths, even some of the densest objects crumple; however, I have a surprise here.” He resumed the video stream. The advancing view of the orb stopped at the edge of the trench, and two humanoid shapes came into view moving toward the orb. Both were somewhat bulky and had the appearance of kegs stacked upon each other. The head of one rotated around, revealing a reddish light, and then turned away. Krath pushed out an irritated exhale and leaned forward to gain a better view of the image.

  “What are those? They look a little like fat Marcks, but not like any I’ve ever seen, and what’s worse is they are ‘bout to get their filthy clamps on that orb.”

  “Very good observation, my brute friend,” Plexo answered. “But those robust Marcks are my Marcks.”

  One of the Marcks drew a bar from its waist belt and held it above the orb, releasing a cube of energy that surrounded the glowing green sphere. Just as the orb began to rise, a dark shadow crashed down upon the Marck. The shadow turned inward and revealed two pale, glowing eyes. The view widened to reveal a long, winding figure with the body of a serpent. One of the Marcks illuminated the beast, and it snarled, exposing a mouthful of long, crystalline spikes for teeth. Blackish lace adorned the serpent’s long back, which spanned outward like a net of feelers sifting for unsuspecting prey. It jerked its head away and coiled up as the bright light stung its purely nocturnal eyes.

  The Marck kept the light pinned upon the beast and blasted a flashing rod toward its neck. A dark fog strewed out from the apparent wound, and another Marck dove forward stabbing into the serpent’s side, slashing down with a blade of energy. The black lace folded down upon the Marck and rippled forward, dragging it into the serpent’s jaws. In a show of strength, the Marck burst outward from the side of serpent, carving and slashing away at its flesh until it exited the ruptured body of the beast while still holding the captured orb.

  “Pretty remarkable, yes?” Plexo added as he shut down the video stream.

  “Tya better not tell me tya have Marcks here, Plexo,” Krath warned and pointed his plump finger toward the Luminar’s face. “Cause if tya do, that’s nothin’ short of treasonous.”

  Plexo fanned his hand downward to settle Krath. “Not to worry, these Marcks are under my control. I happened upon some good fortune by virtue of one of my interior contacts. Through that contact, I was able to get my hands on these mostly forgotten about prototype Marcks. I can assure you that these Marcks have their homing transceivers reprogrammed to report to my own systems. They chain-relay their communication streams through an encryption system in much the same manner as the UMO Marcks do to hide the location of the Central Core System. However, my relay system is quite a bit less complex. The ones you observed in the video, were fascinating as I cannot place what their exact purpose would have been, though I do have some suspicions.”

  Crix’s eyes widened. “What do you mean by that?”

  Plexo was excited to explain, hoping that in doing so, he would enlighten himself with some sort of new theory as to their origins.

  “Well . . . they were designed to withstand pressure that just seems improbable for any practical application, certainly nothing that I can think of that the UMO systems had been working on that would require that sort of pressure scale. Fortunate enough for me, they so happened to have been perfect for the Thale expedition but were well over-speced. Their design made them too bulky for combat or policing. My other Marcks, six in total, were more as you might have expected but had a couple of additional features that must have been removed from production models due to cost.” He looked wearily over at Krath. “Now, if you can contain yourself, I would like to show them to you.”

  Krath shrugged in a manner to suggest that he could not make any guarantees. “Hey, whatever, as long as they don’t provoke me, we won’t have any problems.”

  Plexo frowned, but then called aloud, “Core passageway.” That placed them, within moments, back into the main lab area.

  “Tya know I’m not likin’ tya movin’ us around like this . . .” Krath grumbled before Plexo’s next command interrupted his objection.

  “Eetaks!” Spinning motors whirred as a container projected smoothly from the wall. The container had the appearance of a glass cell with nine Marcks inside standing shoulder to shoulder: three bulky Marcks resembling the ones from the video stream and six burgundy Marcks with lighter, more simplified builds. Each Marck attached to a light-emitting cord that connected to the back of their head.

  “Eetak Four, galvanize,” Plexo said. In an instant, one of the slender Marcks flinched and shook before becoming detached from the cord as the cell walls slid down. Krath and the others stirred with uneasiness. Plexo took notice of their concerned postures. “Not to worry, friends, I have completely rebuilt the logic in these units, and they cannot be controlled by anyone aside from me unless I designate it otherwise.”

  Crix scrunched his brow. “Excuse me, Plexo, why are you referring to them as Eetak?”

  “Ahh . . . yes, their names.” He rubbed his chin and squinted sharply at his nine rebuilt Marcks. “I was quite pleased with them after I finished my work and wanted something clever to call my team. However, I could not get Eetak out of my mind since I observed that word carved into the foot of a single light model prototype. I have no idea what the name means, but it just seemed to be fitting. So I named them Eetaks and numbered them down from one to nine.” He motioned the active Eetak over toward a wall in the distance. Eetak Four sprung from the platform and nimbly attached its hands and feet to the wall.

  “Impressive, wouldn’t you agree? I referred earlier to this removed feature. It is a special type of alloy. This alloy has a molecular structure that gives these Marcks spring-like characteristics and allows them to leap with the same prowess of a Nordan Forest Imp. In addition, they can attach themselves to metallic surfaces by magnetically charging themselves. Obviously, the UMO Warfare Ministry decided that having acrobatic Marcks was not a great enough gain for their intended use and replaced these abilities with the hover disks.” Plex
o motioned again, and Eetak Four scaled gracefully down the side of the wall like a Drisal spider and then jumped back over to the platform.

  “I have retrofitted these prototypes for labor instead of battle. I used them to help construct this ship, and they did so quite expeditiously. Personally, I find them better used for labor than battle as I’m not a supporter of warring efforts either.” Plexo crossed his arms, satisfied with his explanation.

  “That’s real funny since tya designed some of the most devastatin’ weapons that we had durin’ the second war.”

  Plexo looked at Krath with dismay. “Yes, I did what I had to in order to preserve life in these magnificent worlds. Unfortunately, the Thraxons could not be reasoned with, so war was our only option.”

  “Well, I’m sure you are exhausted. There is a resting chamber for you to gain your strength back. You have a very important task tomorrow, and you will need to be well-rested. I have much work still to do in preparation, so Eetak Four will escort you to your chamber. I will send for you after a while to begin preparation for your first task.” Plexo immediately turned away as if lost in thoughts.

  An Eetak waved them over to a bridge of light that rose upward from far below. When it reached their level, they stepped up onto it, and their weightless feeling gave way. The bridge strangely gripped to their feet as they followed into a passageway lined with transparent material.