[scifan] plantation 03 - shadow empire

by Stella Samiotou Fitzsimons

  “What do you have to tell me?” I say to get things started as soon as possible. I don’t want to stay in here a minute longer than necessary.

  “Look at you, all grown-up and composed. Was I right? Are you a mother now?”

  I still feel nervous around him but I can’t let him see that. I can’t let him know that I have nightmares every now and then of needles being stuck in my arms and stomach; or nightmares of a dark army coming after my blood.

  “I will count to three,” I say. “If you don’t give me a good reason why I should stay by then, I’m leaving.”

  “Still tough to the bone.”

  “One.”

  “I’ll tell you, but you have to be a bit nice first.”

  “Two.”

  “What I will tell you, will change your world, little girl.”

  “Three. Goodbye, Zolkon. May you rot slowly.”

  “Do you remember the Dark Legion?” he says as I turn to go.

  “What of them?”

  “I know how you can turn them. How you can control them and make them follow you. There will be no stopping you then.”

  I turn back slowly. “That’s it?” I say.

  Zolkon smiles revealing a set of gray teeth. “Ten thousand super warriors at your disposal. Ten times stronger than ordinary Sliman. Five times faster. A hundred times smarter. Independent of Omicron 5. Doesn’t it sound like a dream?”

  “Sliman usually visit nightmares not dreams,” I say. “Get to it. How do I make them follow me?”

  “First, little girl, you have to promise me something.”

  “No, I don’t have to do anything since you’re the one in chains.”

  “A simple little thing for an old friend who’s trying to help,” he says and he starts laughing. The laughter soon leads to an uncontrollable cough.

  “I’ve told you how I feel about your laughter,” I warn him.

  “What would you do? Kill me? That’s exactly what I want, girl.”

  I consider him from head-to-toe. I know how treacherous and self-serving he can be but no one would be envious of his current situation.

  “Listen, I’m tired. Cave dwelling is not exactly a dignified end. It’s so degrading, so unworthy of what my life has been. You people have no idea what I have seen, how far I have traveled in the stars, what remote, alien civilizations I’ve stumbled upon and survived.”

  I don’t let him know it, but I’m suddenly captivated.

  “I was a traveler in my youth,” he continues. “I accompanied my master in his search for a new world. This cell,” he says and points at the cave around him, “this is no place for one who has seen so much beauty and so much devastation in more star systems than can be remembered.”

  He looks at me a long time. I can see that he appreciates that I have decided to listen. “I’ve seen enough, child. My regrets riddle my decrepit soul in this cold cave. I’ve talked enough, heard enough. I will tell you everything, but then you will have to kill me in return. You can call it payment. I would consider it a kindness. Quick and painless would be preferred, but any death would be welcome. I’m sure you can handle that. I’m nowhere near as daunting a foe as Plantation-15 must have been.”

  His coughing returns stronger than before. It makes him shudder and tremble and his eyes get watery. I can’t feel truly sorry for his condition but I can’t enjoy it either. I spot a carafe on a small table and get him a glass of water. That table and a bed are all the furniture available to him.

  “I never understood the human capacity to forgive,” he says sincerely. “I considered it a weakness, but I can see now that there is a strength to your kind. I knew something like love once, long ago.” These words take him back and silence him as he travels over sad memories.

  “Tell me what you know,” I say, “and I will make your life here more comfortable. I’ll get you books, pens and paper, a decent armchair. I’ll make sure you have enough Omicron 5 and plenty of good food.”

  I’m dangerously close to him. I only realize it when he grabs my left wrist. He doesn’t present a danger to me and we both know it but just to feel his touch on my arm turns my stomach into knots.

  “No,” he says, “you will have to kill me. I won’t negotiate on that.”

  I stay quiet and don’t even attempt to pull my arm away. I look into his tired eyes and I see truth for the first time. He wants out of this world, he doesn’t belong in it anymore. He could be a hundred years old for all I know.

  “Okay, I say. We’ll do it your way. If your information is good and I win this battle, then I will grant your wish.”

  He lets go of my wrist and settles down on the floor with his back against the wall. I crouch down opposite him.

  “The Dark Legion,” he starts, “was designed to be the ultimate army in the empire.”

  “The Shadow Empire,” I say.

  “Yes. Where did you hear this?”

  “You’d be surprised,” I say with a smile.

  He understands I’m not willing to answer his question but doesn’t seem to really care. “They are machines. Fighting, killing machines with high intelligence. They don’t need Omicron 5 to survive although they don’t know it yet. There are many different classes of Sliman and to just put us all together under one name is plain stupid. But the aliens have no social sensibilities. It’s no use trying to explain such subtleties to them. They are only interested in the big, fat picture as you would say.”

  “Arrive at a point. What about the Dark Legion? Why would they fight for me? Will they bend to my will if I touch them?”

  He shakes his head. “I told you, these are no ordinary Sliman. Your touch would not affect them.”

  “How then?” I’m getting impatient and doubts start to dominate my mind about whether he has anything of value to offer.

  “There’s a secret,” he says. “Something that the aliens don’t know. When the Dark Legion was designed, Wudak, Elgon and me, the three leaders of the Sliman insurgence, we decided we’d stir things up a bit just in case we needed the Dark Legion on our side. Wudak had already spotted you and your friends and Elgon was working on the Dark Legion project and had access to the laboratories and testing chambers. You see, the aliens took regular Sliman and operated on them switching genes on and off until they got the desired result. Elgon who had received some training in molecular science was allowed to be present at several such experiments. At the main lab, he risked his life by doing what he did, but he managed to alter one of the genes that was to go into the bloodstream of the Dark Legion. That gene can be programmed from afar with a simple code. All one would have to do would be to read out the code to them and they will instantly have their loyalty for the alien bride re-configured in them. Do you follow so far?”

  “How do I know this is not a trap?” I say.

  “Damn it, girl, are you listening or not? We made sure the Dark Legion would be yours. And in time ours through you. They can all be controlled by you if they are read out the code. But not by you. Their leader has to initiate it.”

  “There is a leader?” I say sheepishly.

  “Yes. His name is Kroll and he’s the only one that has his gene for the alien bride turned on from the start. The aliens wanted to be able to use him as protection for you in case something went wrong and the Dark Legion attempted to harm you. He’d be the only shield between you and them. Get to him, bond with him and he will turn the entire army over to you. And don’t be alarmed by his menacing presence. He is yours for the taking. He will slit his own throat if you ask nicely. He is programmed to be your slave.”

  Zolkon looks up at me exhausted and out of breath. I’m surprised that this once robust and muscular Sliman leader has been reduced to a sickly, depressed creature with no desire other than to die.

  “You are more human than you think,” I say.

  “Am I?” he says. For the first time I see curiosity in his eyes. “How so?”

  “All you really need is something to call your own. You ma
y have gone about it the wrong way, but I’m in no position to judge. If what you have just told me is true, I will honor our agreement if it’s still what you want. Now, give me the code,” I say. “For the Dark Legion.”

  “Hand me your touchpad.”

  I do so and he punches in a series of twenty-seven numbers and letters. I get up to go.

  “It’s a nice place, Planet Sliman,” he says. “It was, anyway. Similar to Earth although colder and greener. I was born there eighty-nine years ago. I had a normal childhood with a mother and a father. They didn’t call themselves or the planet Sliman, mind you. They knew the aliens would come for me but they pretended for my sake it would all be fine. I was seven when I was taken away. Does it sound familiar?”

  I turn slowly to look down at him. “It makes no difference if we have similar experiences,” I say in a low voice. “I have my own war to fight.”

  “Yes, of course you do. Most Sliman are now brought to Earth as babies. They never know their parents. They are raised by humans. Did you know there are breeding villages for Sliman on Earth? Planet Sliman makes the aliens weak faster than Earth does. So all mutations happen here. Most Sliman think they were born on Earth. But not I. I know the truth. I remember.”

  “When I free Earth, I will give all Sliman the option to stay or go back to their planet,” I say.

  “When you free Earth, you will be an old woman. It might not even happen in your lifetime,” he says.

  “Regardless, I have to try.”

  Zolkon’s eyes look beyond me. I turn and see Damian.

  “So, you got your Sliman back,” Zolkon says. “The guards told the story of his rescue like an ancient tale of mythic glory.”

  Damian stares at Zolkon with an intensity I don’t like.

  “We’re leaving,” I say and push Damian out of the cell.

  Gritu and Malzod appear to secure the cell.

  “What did he say to you?” Damian asks as we walk away.

  “Have you heard of the Dark Legion?” I ask. “Was there any mention of that in Plantation-15?”

  “What if I have?”

  “I need to find their leader,” I say. “As soon as possible.”

  12

  A punching bag and my fists are the only things I need at this moment. I punch and kick with all my strength and won’t stop until I can’t take it anymore. While I have questions and no answers, I will keep fighting. As long as I need an ending, I will not search for a beginning.

  I repeat these random ideas to myself as sweat runs down my face and my back. In the end, I have to accept that I am trapped in who I am and the only way out is the path I will create on my own. I’ve known this all my life but I allowed myself to relax and get cozy on Exodus L21. I forgot the one essential truth I have known since birth: freedom comes at a price.

  “It looks like you want to kill that bag,” Joshua says as he steps in the training ring. “I have news for you. It’s never even been alive.”

  I pause to glance at him. I wipe the sweat off my face with the back of my hand. “There’s a reason why they call it a punching bag,” I say.

  “There’s something more to your hatred of the aliens than what the rest of us feel.”

  “They don’t teach you to hate the aliens on Exodus?”

  “We are taught the facts which usually results in some strong form of dislike,” Joshua says.

  “Down here we have more than history lessons,” I say and go back to my punching session. “They enslave us, kill our mothers, mutate the brains of our siblings and they mess with our bodies and minds.”

  “I know about Pip, but is this why Damian is so strong?”

  Without realizing, I am tipping Joshua off. Finn would be very disappointed in me. What else is new?

  “Whatever they do to us, it’s a form of torture and mutilation of our true selves,” I say. “Isn’t that enough to piss us off?”

  “They want you. More than want, they need you,” he says. “Why? How?”

  “I’ve never played nicely with them. Beyond that I can’t tell you.”

  “That’s funny, that’s what Eldritch said more or less when I asked him. Is it because you told him the same thing or because neither of you want to share?”

  I shake my head. “I thought you shared everything in cloud city.”

  “I don’t agree with all of the Commander’s policies. I thought we should have forced you to tell us the truth. I mean, you might have endangered our very existence as a species, the station, your own child. Don’t we all deserve to know why?”

  I go up to him and shove him. “All right, Joshua. You want to know why? I’ll show you. Your commander already knew why long before he ever spoke with me and he didn’t bother to share it with you.”

  I whistle and the receptor flies out of my pocket and into my right hand. Without pausing for a split second, I create a transparent sphere of blue energy that stays suspended in the space between Joshua and me. Then I shake my hand and the energy turns into a long beam. I direct it at the punching bag and it explodes into a million tiny pieces.

  “I pack quite a punch, don’t you think?” I say as the tiny remains of what used to be a punching bag fall to the ground softly all around us. “I don’t kill with punches or kicks or even guns. I kill with all that I am, my heartbeat, my lungs, my blood, the electricity in my brain.”

  Joshua looks at me stunned. He quickly tries to recompose himself.

  “This is alien technology,” he says. “Genetically encoded. You shouldn’t be able to use it.”

  “Hallelujah, I’ve been saying this all along.”

  “I’m confused. How is this possible?” he says.

  “It’s simple, Joshua. They don’t want me because of something I’ve done. They want me because of who I am.”

  “But now it makes no sense at all,” he says working it out in his head. “Why wouldn’t they just kill you? You pose such a threat to them.”

  Smart people are so annoying. They can so easily corner me with logic.

  “Who knows how the alien mind works?” I say bluffing.

  “When you lie, you never make eye contact,” Joshua states.

  I’ve tried to tell Finn I don’t know how to lie. He always catches me himself and, yet, he constantly asks me to lie to these people. It’s become pointless and exhausting.

  “The reason I can hold the receptor is because I have so much of their DNA, but the reason I have so much of their DNA is not to hold the receptor,” I say not trying to sound so much like a riddle.

  “Then why?” Joshua asks nervously.

  “They want me to carry their embryos for them.”

  Joshua goes pale. It’s as if my final punch today landed squarely on his chin. His hands start shaking. He grabs them to hide his nerves.

  “You are the answer to all their problems,” he says. “You are the reason they made the plantations.”

  “More or less,” I say.

  “You know this information is of utmost importance on Exodus L21.”

  “This information would have caused a panic,” I say. “That’s why your commander keeps it from all of you.”

  “They can’t take you,” he says forcefully.

  “I wouldn’t like that either,” I say jokingly.

  “This is not funny. When they have you, the plantations will no longer be priority. Exodus L21 will no longer be safe.”

  I pick up a bottle of water and take a few sips.

  “Time is running out,” he says. “If they take you, it will be the first step to the end. They will blow up Exodus and they will kill all the mutants you speak of and the most terrible part will be your offspring which will help them breed an alien army. Each and every one of that army will be stronger than you.”

  “What do you suggest I do? Kill myself?”

  “Well, that would buy us some time at least,” Joshua says.

  “Tell me how you really think?” I say trying again to make a joke, but Joshua’s no fun. />
  “But I don’t think you should kill yourself,” he says.

  “Gee, thanks,” I say.

  “Nor should you stay hidden for the rest of your life and pretend you’re dead,” he says. “If they made one of you, they will eventually make another.”

  I haven’t thought of that. The last thing I expected from him right now was that he would make me feel better about my cursed existence.

  “No,” he says. “You are an opportunity that won’t come around again.”

  “Thanks, I think,” I say. “For a cold-hearted realist, you’re not so bad.”

  “I do my best.”

  I can’t help but laugh.

  “These are humorous times for you?” he asks.

  “No. I just realized you’re the first guy who talks to me as if I’m a normal person who can handle the truth. Not somebody that needs to be protected, scolded or manipulated. Never mind, they’re my own issues.”

  Joshua smiles even though he may have just learned the world is ending. I share his smile and that’s how Zoe finds us.

  “Hey, Zoe,” I say.

  “Hey, guys,” Zoe says. She turns to me, “I thought you might need some company. You seemed pretty upset earlier.”

  “I feel better now,” I tell her. “I just blew up a punching bag for Joshua.”

  Zoe walks over to the ring and surveys the scattered remains of the bag that lie in a perfect circle on the ground. “You told him?” she says.

  “No more secrets,” I say.

  “Well, what do you think, Joshua?” she says.

  The amused expression hasn’t left his face since we first started laughing. “I agreed that Freya should kill herself and put an end to all this misery,” he says with a grin. “She found that rude, I believe.”

  “I’m surprised you’re still standing,” Zoe teases him. “Many rude Sliman have not fared so well with her.”

  I see an opportunity to set Zoe up. “Joshua, if you don’t mind, I’ll have Zoe tell you more about all this. She is more than a pretty face. She’s the smartest strategist I know next to Finn.”

  Zoe does her best to hide her excitement and her gratefulness. “Yeah, I’d be happy to,” she says.