by Sean Robins
It was a portable force field generator. Arminaa had always thought it was a pretty useless device. It used an enormous amount of energy and could operate for only around twenty minutes, covering a relatively small area. But it did one thing perfectly: It could block the Voice of God.
Killing the animals that worshipped them would not be much fun. Killing them while they were scared shitless, on the other hand, was a completely different story.
The praying stopped. The humans stared at them with confusion and terror on their stupid faces, probably remembering everything that had happened before the Voice of God became active. Their joyful expressions turned into masks of horror.
Arminaa told the others, “Spare the children. We are not monsters.” She pulled her sidearm and shot a young woman standing in front of her, looking at her with wild eyes.
All the Xortaags started shooting. In an instant, the deafening screams of humans filled the mall. They tried to run away. With the force field surrounding them, there was nowhere to go. A lot of them were trampled in the crowd. The Xortaags took their time, walked around and killed them one by one. A few of the Xortaags, not quite satisfied with the carnage, holstered their weapons, drew knives and started stabbing people. Red blood spattered everywhere, its stench mixed with the smell of burned flesh.
Arminaa shot a woman who was trying to shield her two little children and begging her to stop. For a fleeting moment, she was ashamed. The general, being the honorable warrior that he was, would not approve of this. However, the humans had it coming since their cowardly attack that killed off her entire unit. Remembering her dead comrades only fueled her desire for revenge. She kept on shooting people indiscriminately, left, right and center.
SH-1 - August 16, 2048
Mushgaana, sitting at his desk in his office, read the report he had just received about the unauthorized massacre of humans at a shopping mall.
This was a major breach of discipline, but it did give the crown prince an idea. Why did I not think about this before? he asked himself.
He contacted the team in charge of running the Voice of God, “Find me a human who knows how to broadcast a video message.”
Hungover and with a stabbing headache, I woke up when both my PDD and Liz’s started beeping at the same time. Liz had thrown a wild party last night, and we might’ve drunk just a tad too much. Next to me, my wife groaned, “Bloody hell! What time is it?”
I looked at my PDD. “Six-thirty. Tarq’s asking us to come to the Command Center for an urgent meeting.”
“Six-thirty AM or PM?” asked Liz.
Definitely too much drink.
We showed up a bit late to the Command Center, with unkempt hair and bloodshed eyes. Tarq gave us a disapproving look but said nothing. Good decision, too. Liz might’ve skinned him alive given the mood she was in. Kurt, Keiko, and Barook were there too, but Sergei was nowhere to be seen. I figured he was still too drunk to get out of bed.
Kurt, who was also in the party but somehow had managed to show up well-groomed and well-dressed, reeking of expensive perfume, said, “So what’s the emergency?”
Tarq turned on one of the virtual reality screens in the room. “This is being broadcast in a loop on all TV channels. The video is all over the Internet.”
Mushgaana appeared on the screen, looking straight into the camera. He spoke in the Xortaag language. “This is a message for the humans who attacked us a few days ago. I have got two things to tell you. One, starting today, I will kill a thousand people for every Xortaag you kill. Please allow me to demonstrate.”
The screen showed an aerial view of a city. I recognized it as downtown Houston. Liz and I once went there to attend a friend’s wedding and came back with lots of photos and good memories. It looked like it was early evening. Thousands of people and cars moved around the city.
My mouth went dry. Liz grabbed my arm so hard her nails cut into my skin.
Mushgaana’s image appeared on the corner of the screen. “I do not know the name of this city, and I do not really care. What I do care about is the fact that we estimate this city has two and a half million residents. And now, lo and behold.”
He touched the screen of a PDD he was holding in his hand, and everyone in Houston dropped dead at the same time. All the vehicles in the streets went off the road or ran into each other. A city bus ran straight into a tanker and exploded. A few passenger planes fell out of the sky and caused massive explosions. One hit a skyscraper, engulfing a huge section of the building in a raging fire.
Just like that, my hangover, as well as the euphoria I’d been feeling since Operation Free Earth, evaporated, substituted with a sense of dread that locked my teeth tight together.
Mushgaana looked at the camera again. “And second, we are coming for you. And when we find you, we will kill you; we will kill your wives; we will kill your parents and your parents’ friends. We will burn down the houses you live in, and the stores you work in. Mark my words and mark them well. You are all dead. You just do not know it yet.”
I half-expected him to do a trademark Dr. Evil laugh when he was done. This guy had watched way too many movies.
Creativity is dead, I thought.
The screen went black.
We had a very long meeting after that. I didn’t say much. I was numb, and not only due to last night’s drinking and Mushgaana’s stunt. There is only so much a human mind can take. I was just beginning to get over the Xortaags’ last massacre. That said, I suspected that had slightly desensitized us since we kept functioning in a more or less normal way, with no one losing their head, rolling on the ground and trying to scratch their own eyes out after witnessing what’d just happened. Although Keiko, who was always the very picture of stoicism, looked like she did want to scratch her Akaki-made new eye out and throw it at Tarq’s face.
As for the rest of us, I started wondering if Tarq had managed to sedate us when we were sleeping again. I wouldn’t put it beyond him to gas us in our quarters.
Liz looked ghostly pale, gripping the arm of her chair, but at least she didn’t faint this time.
None of us had realized Mushgaana had his finger on the trigger of the ultimate doomsday machine. Even if we defeated their fleet, he could end humanity with their damned MFM, and nobody had a clue how to stop him.
I was feeling sick to my stomach, but that didn’t prevent me from trying to make light of the situation. “Look at the bright side: If he does do that, it’ll be up to us to repopulate the planet, and we can shape humanity in any way we desire.”
Nobody paid me any attention. Again.
Kurt suggested, “If he carries the MFM’s controls with him all the time, maybe we can incapacitate him and stop him from activating the machine.”
Tarq and Barook looked at him in surprise, and it took a few seconds for them to understand what he meant. “You mean that PDD?” said Tarq. “That definitely was not OMC-BOWS’s control. It is a satellite system, and it must be controlled from a smaller, less high-tech version of this room. He probably used that PDD just to send a message to the people actually controlling the system. Plus, on the subject of killing Mushgaana, we have another bad piece of news.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s pouring already?”
“I do not get that reference, but I often do not understand what Jim is talking about,” said Tarq. “We have a Xortaag spy working for us now. She has just arrived at Kanoor and is being debriefed as we speak. According to her, the Xortaag Royal Family possesses very strong telepathic powers. Apparently, Mushgaana can read people’s minds from a distance, which means we cannot even get close to him.”
All color disappeared from Kurt’s face. “This means we sent Allen and his team to their deaths.”
“If it is any consolation, we also sent many of our own spies to death. Every agent I sent to Tangaar just disappeared, and we never knew why.”
“How did this Xortaag spy survive then?” Kurt asked.
“She has her own telepathic ab
ilities. No one can read her mind.”
“Do we know where the MFM control center is?” I asked. “Maybe if we destroy it, Mushgaana can’t use it to kill every single human being on Earth.”
“It would work,” answered Barook. “Based on bits and pieces of information we gathered through our bugs, we know it is somewhere inside SH-1, but we have no idea exactly where.”
Tarq stopped biting his fingernails to add, “We must make finding it a priority, but to be honest, unless we get lucky and our bugs pick something up, I do not see how it can be done. Our spy ship has flown over SH-1 several times, but there is no indication of its location or even existence.”
“What about our Xortaag prisoners?” asked Kurt.
“They would have already told us if they knew, trust me,” replied Tarq.
So, to recap, as if it weren’t bad enough that Mushgaana had just murdered two-and-a-half-million people right in front of our eyes, ensuring I’d have nightmares for weeks, we’d just realized he had the power to go biblical on humanity and kill them off at whim. Not a pleasant thought. Not a pleasant thought at all. I felt much better when I thought he was just a mini-Thanos. I wondered how things could get any worse.
I was surprised when I found out someone outside of Winterfell didn’t like what’d happened in Houston. It was, funnily enough, General Maada.
A few days after the attack, Tarq sent a recording of a heated argument between Maada and Mushgaana about the issue. He sent a message along with the note, saying, “The first voice is Maada; the second is Mushgaana.”
He didn’t need to tell us; by now we knew both their voices. Just a couple of days ago I’d listened to a recording of Maada marching into the crown prince’s office and threatening to kill him if he hurt any more of his men. I was beginning to grudgingly respect that man. And it wasn’t like we were going to forget Mushgaana’s message to us anytime soon.
Liz and I listened to it together. Maada argued that the senseless killing of defenseless civilians had no strategic value and made them look weak. Mushgaana pointed out they had killed a lot more people already and all “these useless, brainless animals” would be dead in a few decades anyway.
The crown prince was all heart.
“Those are both strategic decisions,” said Maada. “We cannot afford to allow several hundred million of a planet’s inhabitants to roam freely, and when the colonization process is complete, we cannot have them competing with us for the planet’s natural resources. This? This is different. There is no honor in this.” Then he added, “With all due respect, Your Highness, sometimes I think you just enjoy killing people.”
“And you do not?” scoffed Mushgaana.
I could feel Maada’s anger. With a shivering voice, he said, “I am a fleet general, and I serve the kingdom. I kill people because it is necessary for the future of the kingdom and our people. But no, I do not take any personal pleasure in it.”
A genocidal, world-conquering manic with a conscience. Now I’d seen everything.
Ten days after the Hudson massacre, Tarq called us to another urgent meeting. We showed up at the Command Center with “now what!” written all over our collective faces.
Tarq said, “We have recorded a conversation between Mushgaana and Maada that you all need to listen to.” Using his PDD, he played the recording.
Mushgaana: General, come in and sit down. Let me guess. Coffee?
He said coffee in English. They probably didn’t have a word for it.
Maada: Yes, Your Highness. Thank you.
“Maada drinks coffee?” I whispered.
Liz shushed me.
Mushgaana: I have wonderful news. As you know, our R & D department has been trying to develop a planet buster for years.
Maada: And they have always failed.
Something stirred in the back of my mind. There was something vaguely familiar about this conversation. A single word began to form in my brain, but Mushgaana’s next sentence took my breath away and my attention with it.
Mushgaana: Until now. They have developed a prototype, and they have decided to use it on Earth.
We all paled a bit and looked at each other in horror. This was completely unexpected, and it threw a big monkey wrench into our plans.
Maada: But we have spent so much time and energy building Kingdom of God here.
Mushgaana: Which is of no use to us. We have no idea where the first attack originated, and we are vulnerable to another one. This planet is of no use to us like this, but we do have the opportunity to destroy the enemy with no risk to our forces.
Maada: So what is the plan?
Mushgaana: A convoy is scheduled to arrive in exactly sixty-four Earth hours. They will bring us the planet buster. It does not work from space. We will deploy it right here, then we will evacuate this place and watch it burn from orbit.
Maada: If they are already so close to Earth, they must have left Tangaar even before we conquered Earth.
Mushgaana: Yes. My dear father had kept it a secret even from me. At first, he was planning for us to use the planet buster on our next target, but the recent events changed his mind.
Maada: Should I send my fighters to escort the convoy?
Mushgaana: There is no need. They have a thousand Deathbringers escorting them, and any actions from your side might attract the enemy’s attention. We are keeping this under wraps. They will not know what hit them.
Oh, the irony!
Maada: And where are we going to go, once Earth is destroyed?
Mushgaana: I have decided to follow our original plan and attack Kanoor. I am certain they were behind the attack on City of God. How else could humans achieve such advanced technology?
Tarq, biting his fingernails, stopped the recording. Liz was the first to speak. “We have to stop them.”
I almost said “Dah!” but bit my tongue. Who said I couldn’t be diplomatic?
“Obviously. But we need to come up with a plan,” said Tarq.
“Aren’t we forgetting something?” said Keiko. “What about Mushgaana’s threat to kill a thousand people for every Xortaag we kill?”
“We do not have a choice here,” answered Tarq. “I do not want to sound heartless, but even if he kills another couple of million humans, it is better than letting him destroy the whole planet and kill everyone.”
I wanted to pull a Captain America and say, “We don’t trade lives,” but to be honest that argument was totally stupid.
Sorry, Cap.
Chapter Twelve
I was flying in space.
As a sci-fi fan, I’d read many books and watched lots of movies about being in space. Hell, I had hundreds of hours of MICI-induced memories of flying a Viper in space. Still, nothing could prepare you for the sense of overwhelming awe when you looked at Earth from six thousand miles away. One could argue we were still in Earth’s exosphere and technically not in space, but I couldn’t care less. The view took my breath away in a most sensational way. I was transfixed, wonder uplifting me until I was as light as air.
I listened intently, trying to hear if anyone screamed.
“It’s peaceful up here,” said Venom.
Liz said in my headset, “This is breathtaking.”
I shared her sentiment.
When I looked at the blue planet glowing down there, the first thing I thought was “home.” Getting involved in inter-galactic politics, as in forming an alliance with an alien race to fight another one, makes you understand despite all our considerable differences, conflicts and wars, we are all the same species.
Our plan was simple. We knew when the convoy was scheduled to arrive. Mushgaana had mentioned “exactly sixty-four hours.” We assumed he meant local time, which meant August 31, 0500 EST. We were waiting for them at that time. Tarq and Barook would track the enemy ships as soon as they arrived, and using the SFD, would send us to welcome them. There were three thousand of us against a thousand of them, so we’d destroy them and their planet buster and disappear b
efore help could arrive.
As I said, simple.
Tarq said, “Heads up. The convoy has just arrived.”
My heart started beating faster, just a little bit.
“In a few minutes, we will send you to the new coordinates. Stand by,” Tarq added.
I knew it took a few minutes for Barook to make the necessary calculation and lock on us with SFD. “Okay, boys and girls, you heard the boss,” I said. “Put your game face on. The fate of the planet depends on us. But while we stand together, no invader shall pass. Let them come with the armies of Hell; they will not pass! And when this day of battle is ended, we meet again in Heaven or on the field of victory!”
I had practiced my speech several times, and I was proud of it until Liz, much to my chagrin, dissolved into laughter and ruined it for me.
“We are sending you in three, two, one,” said Tarq.
I half expected to fade little by little and appear again in another location, but I didn’t feel a thing. One second, we were alone in space, and the next a thousand enemy ships appeared in my targeting scope. The position of Earth had changed a bit, but you had to look for it to notice.
The enemy saw us and tried to change course and speed away. It was a futile gesture. They had to protect the cargo ship, which was much slower than our fighters.
“I see dead people,” I told Liz.
I was certain she was rolling her eyes in her cockpit.
Suddenly Keiko contacted me, her voice strained, “Jim, check BT-451.”
Curious, I checked the coordinates she’d mentioned, and to my surprise found a single space fighter hovering there. I zoomed in and found myself staring at a crimson Deathbringer. The crimson Deathbringer.
Maada’s space fighter.
With a jolt, I remembered what I was thinking about when listening to the conversation between Maada and Mushgaana, and why that conversation sounded familiar.
