Fear the Empire

by Jaron Lee Knuth

  “Smile or we'll rip that baby from your womb,” he'd whisper in her ear. “Love me or die.”

  That was the only possible explanation. It was the only thing that stopped Andre's world from shattering all around him.

  A tiny robot bumped into his foot with a series of beeps, then began cleaning up the spilled coffee. Andre took a breath, his first since he saw Carmen on the screen with a baby inside her. He stepped closer to the television and touched the zoomed in image of her face on the screen.

  “I'm almost ready to show you what I've become,” he whispered.

  5

  ZANA

  The mid-afternoon sun beat down upon the plains of Therian, making the tall, golden blades of grass warm to the touch. Zana ran her fingers along the tips of the grass as she walked toward Dominus Mastodon's castle. She enjoyed the moments alone, in the peacefulness of the quiet hours, the long days that seemed to go on forever. She spent a lot of time speaking with her late mother, sometimes even her stupid, stupid brother. She only wished they would speak back to her.

  When the news of the attack on the Grand Citadel reached her, and she found out about the deaths of her family members, it took every ounce of strength not to burst out of the castle and fly home. But with some reflection, she heard her mother's voice telling her to think before she acted. There weren't many Zharkovs left, but her father was the Imperator now, and she knew that meant things would change. She trusted him. Much more than her foolish great uncle Padamir. Or was he her grandfather through marriage? Her family tree had twisted itself into a breeding ground of super powers that confused even her.

  It was her younger brother, Yuri, that she worried about the most. He was still missing, yet she heard rumors of his violent outbursts causing mayhem around the world. She promised her mother that as soon as the baby was out of her, she would return to her duties. She would rein in her brother and fight alongside her uncle Maksim. The family would reunite and the world would bow down to them once again.

  But at that moment, much like the rest of Therian, her mind was on the war. Armies of bird-men swooped overhead, and the horse-men infantry units practiced their formations to the east, in the shadow of the mountain range. Everyone was preparing for battle. The entire domain assumed it was only a matter of days before her pregnancy would be proclaimed and the forces of Therian would move on the Neo-Nipponese robot army. They were thirsty for battle. She could see it in the engorged pupils that stared at her as she passed, their tongues salivating at the thought of her child's gestation. Their noses sniffed the air around her, trying to smell her fertility. She felt like little more than cattle. But in Therian, that wasn't necessarily an insult.

  She had tried her best to adjust to her new life. The hardest part, at first, was leaving the battlefield. Knowing her troops were being slaughtered while she slipped into the role of motherhood sent her into fits of rage. She was being coddled while brave men and women fought for the Empire. Everyone waited for her pregnancy, trying to stay alive just a little while longer, until the war would finally be over.

  The change she wasn't prepared for though, was that of the sense of freedom she found in Therian. Other than allowing Luca, the son of Dominus Mastodon, to mount her every night, she was free to do as she wished. And strangely, this felt like more independence than she had when she lived at the Grand Citadel. What was happening to her was repugnant, demeaning, and physically abusive, beyond any morality she deemed worthy, but she endured. She continued on, fueled by what was left of her warrior spirit.

  There was an openness in Therian, not only in the land, but the people. It had taken her a while to see past the chaos, the anarchy of the primal nature of the people, but once she did, she saw them for what they truly were: free. When they were tired, they slept. When they were hungry, they hunted. Their bodies dictated their actions, not history or culture or laws. Even with the violence this often caused, Zana could respect that kind of lifestyle. She held less and less sympathy for the victims of the herd. If they were unhappy, they should bite back. It seemed simple, yet it was a lesson she was still learning herself.

  When Zana reached the entrance to the castle, the guards nodded their heads to her as she stepped around them and made her way to the rear courtyard. There, she found Luca training with his elite squad of soldiers. He called them the Devil Legion. A group of men and women of various animal hybrids who trained in nearly every form of combat. Hand-to-hand, weaponry, stealth, subterfuge. Nothing was beyond them. They lived together, ate together, and slept together. They rarely spoke to anyone outside their ranks. They wore leather armor the color of midnight, with tiny horns atop their form-fitting helmets. When they marched down the halls, their feet moved in unison, their eyes never roaming, always peering straight forward. They were whispered about among the other soldiers and civilians, a fighting force of legend and mystery, but Zana saw something else in them. She saw something beautiful. Something undiluted by the outside world. They were a cohesive unit that always knew what they were pointed at, where they were aiming. A single sword with a thousand edges.

  And so she watched them from the balcony that overlooked the private courtyard every day. She admired their movements, like a violent ballet. She felt the power behind every shout that bellowed from them with the thrust of their spears and the slash of their swords. She was in awe of them.

  What did not impress her, was the lack of guidance from their so-called leader. Luca sat in a throne-like chair at the front of the courtyard, looking bored with their practice. His elephant head, surrounded by the mane of a lion, leaned against one paw, his eyes drooping as if he were about to fall asleep. He did not offer them praise, nor criticism. He passively watched the leaders among the men and women give out orders as they ran through each technique over and over, his hand resting gently upon a whip of barbed leather.

  She clenched her fists and thought to herself, “These aren't your men. They follow you only because you hold the leash. You're no leader. You treat them like they're your pets. Your slaves.”

  She pictured him in battle, cowering in the trenches, unable to form strategies between the tears in his eyes. He was soft and spoiled. Spoon-fed since he was a child, he barely knew how to hunt prey, much less fight in a war with predators on both sides. It sickened her to think what he was wasting. She could only imagine what a group of soldiers like the Devil Legion could be under the guidance of a true warrior.

  Luca twitched in his chair, then turned his nose up, sniffing the air. His eyes crossed the skyline until they came to rest on Zana. He held up the whip, and the entire Devil Legion stopped. They clicked their heels together and stood at attention.

  “What are you doing here?” he called out across the courtyard. “This is no place for you.”

  He had never sensed her presence before. The winds must have changed with the seasons. She cursed her lack of attention to the details of the domain, but stood up, unafraid of the consequences.

  “I'm only admiring these soldiers,” she called back to him. “They are quite the warriors.”

  Luca laughed. He laughed! At her.

  “What would you know about warriors?”

  She floated across the courtyard and landed in front of his chair with a gracefulness that hid her anger.

  “I am the Guardian of the East.”

  “Nonsense.” He waved his hand in the air and kept his smug smile. “You are no longer a Guardian of anything.”

  “I fought on the front lines of the Neo-Nipponese uprising. I commanded entire armies. I've seen more bloodshed than-”

  “You fought against robots. Toys. If you saw bloodshed, then it was the blood of your own soldiers. That doesn't sound like a good warrior to me.”

  He laughed again, baring his teeth and throwing his elephant trunk into the air without even looking at her. His dismissive nature infuriated her, but she knew better than to show emotion in front of soldiers. She had a need, deep down, for these elite men and women to respec
t her. She cared little of what Luca thought of her.

  She breathed in through her nose and closed her eyes, recounting the lives that were lost under her command. Each and every one was a scar she still bore, every face a vivid memory that kept her up at night.

  “A true leader would never laugh at death. They would know exactly how important every life is on the battlefield. I did lose men and women under my command. But they did not die because of failure, they died because of heroism. They died because they were willing to sacrifice themselves so that others may live.”

  Luca stood up and stepped past her, speaking more to the soldiers than to her.

  “Here in the Devil Legion, we prefer to kill so that others may live. That is why we will win this war.”

  Zana shook her head, fearing the arrogance in the young man that led the soldiers. She feared what path that would lead them down.

  “A wise warrior once told me that only those who have never seen battle could think someone wins a war.”

  He chuckled to himself. “It sounds to me as if you'd prefer not to fight. Has the sight of all that blood turned you into a pacifist?”

  “Of course I'd prefer not to fight. The only reason to go to war is to see the fighting end. We fight for peace. We fight to unify the Empire.”

  Luca called out to his soldiers, “Do you thirst for battle?”

  The men and women of the Devil Legion slammed their weapons against their shields in unison and shouted out, “Hurrah!”

  “Do you hunger for the sight of your enemy's corpse lying before you?”

  Again they pounded their shields and shouted, “Hurrah!”

  Luca spoke to her with a growl in his voice. “You see? Those are warriors. Bred for war. They know nothing else. They do not seek peace because they have no place there. You do not let your sword dull, you keep it sharp, whether you are using it or not.”

  He sat back down in his chair, as if he were contently satisfied with his statement, like he had won the debate.

  “Now go, woman. Leave the real warriors to their training. Return to your chambers where you belong and wait for me with open legs.”

  She had never before in her life been spoken to like that. She was a Zharkov, yet this mutated beast of a man thought she was nothing more than a mare for him to breed. His imbecilic mind would not be changed with words. The soldiers that stood in front of her would not respect her wisdom until they respected her as a warrior.

  She shot into the air and then dropped into the center of the soldiers with the power of a lightning strike. The ground cratered under her feet and when she rose to her full stature, the soldiers around her took a step back. She raised one hand, and motioned with her fingertips for them to approach.

  “Come at me.”

  The soldiers, confused and apprehensive, turned toward their master for his command. He leaned forward with a smile on his face and nodded.

  They weren't foolish. They surrounded her with a force five soldiers deep, encircling her with shields up and weapons drawn. She knew, with her invulnerability, she could simply stand there and let the weapons break against her skin, but she would not gain their respect that way. She needed to show them that she knew how to fight.

  Four spears lunged at her in unison, making it impossible to dodge or deflect all of them. At least it would have been for the average opponent, but Zana was far from average. She slashed out with her left hand, breaking the tips off of three of the spears as she twirled in a circle dodging the other two. Three more soldiers brought swords down upon her, but she rolled to the side, smashing the palm of her hand into a shield. An entire row of soldiers went flying as the explosive impact shattered the metal. More blades slashed through the air, but she spun again, grabbing one of the attackers by the hand and throwing him into another.

  This went on for nearly twenty minutes. Zana systematically disarmed and knocked unconscious every member of the Devil Legion. When it was all over, she stood tall in the center of the courtyard, atop a pile of soldiers, all of them moaning in pain. Her eyes rose up from the ground to meet Luca's stare. He shook off his look of bewilderment and recaptured his smug smile.

  “That Zharkovian blood sure does make it look easy, doesn't it?”

  She floated toward him, and much to her amusement, he flinched. It was as if, for a brief moment, he thought he was next. She wished that was possible, to take him down and show him exactly how powerless he was, but she knew her family was counting on her. They needed this military force to attack from the south, divide the robot forces of Neo-Nippon so that they could push them back. Now more than ever, she needed to be smart. It was arrogance and brashness that caused so many deaths in her family.

  She gave him a nod and touched her belly. “Yes. That same blood will make our child strong.”

  “Perhaps even stronger than you,” he said with that same smile she wanted to knock from his face.

  She smirked and said, “Stronger than either of us. I have no doubt the packs will follow our child.”

  The smile fell from Luca's face. In Therian culture, the idea of a father's child usurping him was always a threat. There was an implied rule of succession, but one did not have to wait for the passing of the Imperator in order to seize control. In Therian, the strongest ruled. The alpha took what was rightfully theirs. You either earned and kept the respect of the packs, or someone else would. And Luca knew that their child would certainly be stronger than him. More powerful. More dominant.

  “Even if our child was born today, there would be many years before it was ready to rule,” Luca said, scoffing at the idea of giving up the title he thought he was born into.

  “Perhaps.” Zana lifted off the ground, floating higher and higher as she spoke. “But that day will come. It is inevitable. Your time is limited.”

  She left him there, alone on his makeshift throne, among his decimated forces, with only the image of his child taking away everything that had been promised him.

  6

  ESMERALDA

  Majesty Tower laid in ruins, the result of the Zharkovian child who was terrorizing the globe. The boy had lashed out, unsatisfied with the death of Esmeralda's husband and child. Unable to find her to seek out his revenge, he tried taking away everything that belonged to her.

  She had always known the risk. She was a public face, and that was the reason she tried to stay behind the curtain and let Hector take care of the bloody work. But she had been exposed. Hector had succeeded, but was caught in the last seconds of his assassination attempt. Unfortunately, she was ultimately tied to him and blamed right alongside him. She could accept all this. But one thing still bothered her, still drove her back to the site where her livelihood once stood.

  First, were the employees she had left behind. There were those that lost their jobs when MajesTech fell, and she felt responsible for that. She had already dug into her secret vaults and off shore accounts to try to reimburse some of their lost wages. These men and women were exactly who she and Hector were fighting for. They were strong members of a society that had left them behind. They crunched numbers, they swept floors, they designed groundbreaking technology, and they did it all without the disease. Without powers. She had built her company on their backs. The money she had stored through the years would serve them well. It was the least she could do for them.

  It was the ones who perished in MajesTech Tower that she could do nothing for. She sent anonymous donations to their families, which would help, but she could never bring their loved ones back. All the money in the world couldn't tell you it loved you, hug you at night, or let you know you were the most important person in the world. Her loss, and the loss of every employee that died that day, would plague her thoughts forever.

  But her driving force, the one thing that still haunted her dreams and fueled every second of her life since the death of her husband, Hector, and her son, Miguel, was the fact that for every thing they had accomplished, the Zharkovs still ruled. They killed the Im
perator and the Guardian of the North, they caused a disruption that was still rocking the Empire, causing fractures between Domini and even the citizens, but a Zharkov still wore the crown. And the way he was talking on television, made her fear he was even more dangerous than the previous one.

  For all that had happened, the death of her family, the destruction of her company, she was not defeated. They could take everything from her, and she would still keep fighting. This was the thing that originally sparked between her and Hector. They saw the same fire in each other's eyes, the same unyielding force of nature that pushed them forward, always.

  A smile crept across her face when she looked across the street from under her hooded sweatshirt and saw the pile of rubble that was once her home. She smiled because they only thought they had taken everything from her.

  Hector had taught her about contingency plans. She had always been a big believer in a solid plan B. Even a plan C. You don't grow your business into a worldwide leader of cutting edge technology without having backup plans. But Hector always went beyond that. It wasn't enough to have a plan in place in case the first one failed. He had plans in place for every possible scenario. He would strategize from the villain's point of view, determining what their best action was and then figuring out how to defeat that action. He was a master at it, and she was his student. So much so, that she had contingency plans in case he ever turned on her. It was no betrayal of her love for him. She was sure he had the same plans in place for her. It was all part of their unspoken agreement, a part of their lifestyle, their mission.

  She dialed into the surrounding wireless communications with her modified MajesTech watch and found the data stream flowing from the security drone that patrolled the area. A few simple hacks and the drone began to loop everything from alarms and heat sensors, to its backup video footage. Once it was disarmed, she strolled across the street, hopped over the police barrier that surrounded the rubble, and made her way to the southeast corner.