by Will Lemen
He proudly mentioned the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx, and told me how and why they were built, and how the humans had defiled them and the good name of his ancient relatives.
As we stepped out of the ship's conveyor onto Bay 5 and walked down a drab hallway, he finished his rendition of how he and his crew had released a genetically altered protein molecule into the atmosphere. That protein molecule targeted certain human blood types and attacked their antibodies, thus causing people with said blood types to contract the zombie virus (zombie virus, my words not his) and rise from the dead with a voracious appetite for living or dead flesh, provided the dead flesh hadn't been dead too long.
As we neared the end of the hallway, the Captain began to tell me about the mysterious Bay 5 that his junior officer had earlier threatened to escort me too personally.
"Rylo Kesbvoff of the Science Academy on Tarsa II is the top persecuting officer assigned on this mission; he is in charge of all disciplinary actions designated to take place during this expedition."
"Is he the officer that made that slight mistake?" I asked politely, plastering a fake smile on my face.
Lieutenant Zeem who had been silent until now spoke up quickly, and apparently a little too excitedly for his own good.
"Oh no Jack Doom, Rylo Kesbvoff would never make a mistake like that!"
"Really, just what kind of mistake would I make?" Rylo Kesbvoff asked, seeming appearing out of nowhere.
Even in the middle of the dire straits that I knew we were in, I noticed the priceless look on the young Lieutenants face.
His eyes bulged out even farther than normal as his slack jaw dropped almost to the deck (that's the floor in naval jargon).
I could almost see the crotch of his uniform pants pucker under the strain.
"Am I hearing a false accusation lodged against me Lieutenant Zeem?" the persecuting officer asked, with a gleam in his eye, as he remembered the Captain's promise that he would be the Lieutenant's teacher if he were to continue to bend the rules.
"No sir, Rylo Kesbvoff, not at all," Lieutenant Zeem answered squeamishly, his eyes and sphincter both bulging out as he remembered the greenish-yellow light that flooded down on Private Jol and the metallic recliner. "I just meant that Private Jol was the perpetrator at fault."
"Oh, well that's too bad, because I would love to see what you look like in a greenish-yellow glow," Rylo Kesbvoff scoffed with a smirk.
"Enough of the childish banter, Jack wants to see Private Jol in all of his glory," Captain Xarr ordered gruffly. "By the way Jack, how's my English? Am I pronouncing all of the words correctly?"
"What the fuck?" I thought. "Who am I, the schoolmarm?"
"Yeah Captain, you get an A+ in English," I told him, as I watched his chest puff out almost as far as his Lieutenants sphincter. "Now can I please take a look at this Private Jol clown of yours?"
"Certainly Jack, but you've got to teach me how to speak in that colorful vernacular you are so fond of using," the Captain insisted. "I have become quite proficient in the proper English language used by the inhabitants of your land, but I am a little confused when it comes to using the continents slang. That particular jargon of your dialect changes too fast for our foreign language library to keep up with."
"Sure Cap," I said, thinking that I might be pushing my luck. "Here's your first lesson. Open the fucking door and let's see the asshole that got my family killed."
Captain Xarr wasn't sure whether to smile and thank me for the lesson in American profane slang, or to have me put under the greenish-yellow light that I was about to see shinning on Private Jol. Or what was left of him anyway.
After a slight hesitation trying to decide my fate, the Captain gave the order to open the door in front of us.
"Open the chamber door!"
"Yes Captain Xarr," the guard on my right side responded as he pressed the dark blue octagonal button on the seamless wall.
The door of the chamber quickly and quietly melted away just as the holding cell did that still housed Beth and the rest of my party, and revealed a room bathed in a pale greenish-yellow light.
In the middle of the room was a blood drenched metallic chair hanging from the ceiling that reminded me of electric chairs I had seen in photographs of nineteen thirties era prisons, only glossy and without any wood attached, and a little more high-tech. Okay, a lot more high-tech.
"This is one of Bay 5's indoctrinating persecution chambers; it is where officers and crew members alike are sent for punishment and rehabilitation," the Captain bragged proudly.
"Yes, officers like you Lieutent Zeem!" Rylo reminded the squeamish subordinate officer.
As we entered the chamber, I caught a slight smile break the horizontal plain of the seated subject's mouth, as he heard the veiled threat from Rylo Kesbvoff.
We walked toward the suspended chair that was dripping the odd color red blood onto the floor of the chamber, to take a closer look at its disfigured occupant who had since stopped his attempt to smile.
Suddenly, one of the sentries that was assigned to guard me yelled and dropped to the deck. The other guard quickly closed the small gap between us and gave me a steely glare, as if to tell me to remain where I was.
"Sorry Captain Xarr," the fallen guard apologized. "It is these toes that are scattered all over the deck; they are like titanium ball bearings that have been soaked in Trilax oil."
"I told you to get those toes off the deck before somebody fell," the Captain barked at Rylo. "Did I not make my order clear enough for you to comprehend?"
"Of course Captain Xarr, I picked up the toes the moment you and Lieutenant Zeem left the chamber," the persecuting officer in charge insisted, as he noticed a smirk creep onto Lieutenant Zeem's face.
Pulling a container off one of the shelves behind him, he opened it and displayed the severed toes in question, all of which were neatly packed into the metal jar.
"These are Private Jol's toes," he explained, squinting his eyes and frowning at the Lieutenant. "The guard slipped on the Private's finger tips, I would have had them cleaned off the deck if I had known that company was coming."
The guard picked himself up from the puddle of blood he had landed in, and tried to act as if nothing had happened, pissed that his clean uniform was now smudged with Private Jol's ooze.
"You are a very lucky Annunaki, Rylo Kesbvoff.
If Mr. Doom had fallen and been injured to the point that he would not be able to carry out his mission for the Annunaki cause because of your lack of discretion, old friend or not, I would have had no choice but to make a very painful example out of you." Captain Xarr, threatened sternly.
"Yes Captain Xarr, it will never happen again," Rylo promised, as he caught another smirk from Lieutenant Zeem out of the corner of his eye.
"What mission?" I asked, not liking what I was hearing.
"I will explain everything to you in due time, but first I want to introduce you to Private Jol as you so colorfully requested.
The Captain nodded to the guards giving them permission to allow me to advance toward him and Private Jol unencumbered.
"This pathetic, how do you American Earther's say it, let me think, oh yes, this piece of shit, is the former second in command of my ship. That duty now is the responsibility of Lieutenant Zeem over there," the Captain informed me, pointing in the Lieutenant's direction.
"This is the guy that killed my family?"
"You are the lone surviving member of test subject group 32452013 because of then Lieutenant Jol's failures to carry out his duties adequately.
"Uooouueeww!" moaned Private Jol.
"He can't speak clearly Captain Xarr, I have already extracted his tongue from his mouth," Rylo explained. "I used a new procedure that I developed myself. Very painful I might add."
"It is good to hear that you continue to educate yourself in your chosen craft," Captain Xarr replied. "Now hand this earther one of your tools, he would like to apply some suffering to Private Jol, wouldn't
you Jack?"
Surrounded by what I now knew were beings from another world, I felt that I had no choice but to accept the Captain's offer and torture his former officer. Knowing nothing about my captures, turning down his request might mean taking the Privates place, whether they thought that I had some kind of a mission or not.
However, don't get me wrong, if this son-of-a-bitch was the one responsible for the deaths of Gin and my boys (I mean besides the Sarge), I would be more than happy to take a couple of chunks out of him.
"I cannot let you kill Private Jol," the Captain warned. "Pathetic or not, he is still an Annunaki and we do not allow other species to wantonly take the lives of our kind if we can help it. However, because Private Jol has not yet reached the end of his persecution session, I can allow you to inflict an exorbitant amount of pain onto him."
Rylo Kesbvoff then carefully handed me an item that resembled a piece of twisted white plastic with spikes sticking out of a cube that was situated at what I believed to be the top of the instrument.
The tool weighed somewhere around three pounds and had sharp edges everywhere except what seemed to be its handle.
With the alien tool in my right hand, I turned back to the entity in the metal chair and raised the implement over my head. A hard and swift vertical swipe down onto the knee of Private Jol with the spiked cube, forced him to fill the room with another scream.
"That tool is supposed to be used on the upper torso of his body," Rylo called out.
"If that is the case, then why does he yell so loudly when I do this," I asked, as I plunged the plastic torture mechanism into the side of the alien's face.
"Aaaaoouuww!" screeched the man in the chair while I drug the imbedded spikes across his cheek, leaving a trail of blood and deep scratches in his skin.
Glancing around the chamber at the unemotional members of the spaceship's crew as I repeatedly beat their private with the tool that they had provided me. I couldn't help but to think if they would do this to one of their own for a miscalculation, what would they be capable of doing to us humans for some minor arbitrary blunder that we might commit?
The shrieking coming from Private Jol's mutilated oral orifice was beginning to give me a headache. The Captain had made it abundantly clear to me that I was not to kill the Private under any circumstances, so I decided to see if I could put an end to my turn as the torture chamber master, and see if I could get back to Beth.
I swung the spiked plastic mallet down once more, this time onto what was left of Private Jol's right hand.
"I guess that should do it, since you won't let me kill this ass monkey," I told the Captain smiling, as if I were satisfied with the results of my alien beat down. "Now can I see Beth? All this fucker's caterwauling is starting to get on my last nerve. And besides, it looks like your man Rylo has everything under control around here."
With Rylo smiling and nodding his head in agreement of my comment, and after ordering Lieutenant Zeem to remain behind and assist him with the fingertip cleanup, and any other mess that needed his attention, I was marched back down the hallway and into the waiting elevator.
Several minutes later I watched the wall of the holding compartment melt away again, and saw Beth sitting in the far corner smiling at me.
"May we come in?" Captain Xarr inquired, as if he needed permission to enter the room. "It is now time to inform you of the Annunaki mission that brought us to your planet."
I watched as the smile on Beth's face faded and was replaced with a look of confusion. That same look was all too noticeable on Derek's and Jolene's faces as well.
"Who the hell are these guys, and what in the fuck is he talking about? Brought them to our planet?" Derek spewed, pissed and confused.
"Yeah, what does he mean Jack?" Beth asked, not knowing whether to be scared or pissed off too.
"Captain Xarr," I said. "Maybe this will go a little smoother if you allow me to preface your little announcement.
"That is an excellent idea Jack Doom," the Captain answered, with a hand motion signaling me to proceed.
"This is Captain Xarr," I began. "He is in charge..."
"In charge of what?" Derek interrupted.
"Shut the fuck up and listen," I said, clenching my teeth and glaring at him. "Everything he is about to tell you is true, everything. Some of which I will be hearing for the first time with you.
You're not going to like what he has to say, I know I didn't, but that's just tough shit for us.
I don't think that we are the only people that they brought aboard, but I believe that I am the only one that got the grand tour, and you wouldn't believe the shit that I've seen.
We're here, we're trapped here, and from what I've seen so far, there is absolutely no way to escape. We are doomed.
I've been told that this is my new home and my guess is that it is your new home too.
I don't have any idea what they have in store for us, but I don't think that we have any choice in the matter, so listen to what Captain Xarr has to say, it's going to shock the shit out of you, but all you can do is just grin and bear it."
I walked over to where Beth was sitting, sat down beside her, and put my arm around her.
"It's all yours Captain Xarr."
The Captain stood in the doorway with the two sentries by his side, and with his usual blank expression draped over his face he began to speak.
"All of you have been unwitting participants in a military exercise. The purpose of which was to weed out the weaklings of your species, and devolve the remainder of the survivors into formidable soldiers who will be used to help bring victory to the Annunaki Confederation and glory to the Supreme Being of the Annunaki race in the ongoing interplanetary Gynandromorph wars."
"What in the hell is the Annuaki race?" Jolene spouted.
"Shut your fucking pie hole and listen like you were told to do," Captain Xarr retorted back. "How is that for the proper vernacular use Jack?"
"I have taught you well Captain, and I am extremely impressed with how quickly you've mastered the introduction of profanity into your sentence structure. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that I was 9 years old, and back at home having Christmas dinner with my idiot father," I jested sarcastically, trying to make the best of our horrible situation, and at the same time show Beth that I wasn't scared shitless. Even though I was about to shoot a double deuce down both pant legs, and that was while I was sitting down.
My sarcasm again soared high over the alien Captain's head as he proudly replied to my comment.
"I have been studying in my spare time; I just needed some guidance in the subtle idiosyncrasies from an expert like yourself," the Captain gloated. "I am glad that my hard work is reaping positive results."
Jolene quickly shut her fucking pie hole as the Captain had recommended, and allowed him to continue.
"Jack was correct when he told you that you are not the only test subject group that was brought on board this vessel. Although you were initially chosen because of your association with Mr. Doom, it quickly became clear that you too were of the fighting caliber of earthers that we had come here to collect.
Except for Ms. loud mouth there, that concubine was brought aboard for the sole purpose of pleasing the one called Derek."
Beth squeezed my hand, and snickered when Captain Xarr referred to Jolene as a concubine, but stopped smiling when he suggested that Jolene could also service me if I so desired.
You could almost cut the tension with a knife when the ship's Captain made his next statement.
"Your planet has been turned back over to the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures that we released to exterminate the control subjects that you call zombies," Captain Xarr continued. "We will allow them to over populate the planet to insure that all of the control subjects will be eradicated. You might even say that I have rescued all of you from your miserable existence on your home world and from the fate of those who were not chosen to join you.
Because the earthers
that were not able to regress into the primal brutal primitives that they had evolved from, and thus failed to meet the needs of the Annunaki military machine, they too will be extracted from the planet as well. However, the means by which they will depart will be through the grisly jaws of the wild beasts that we have unleashed upon your world.
Of course, all of that will take place shortly after a select few of the rejected earthers that we will abduct at the request of our science department, have been administered the usual authorized anal probes and various other medical prodding and poking and are returned to the planet.
It will be my recommendation to the Supreme Being that an order be given that no Annunaki ships will return to this planet for at least five thousand kronal sections.
That will give the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures along with other prehistoric carnivores that we have set free to populate your world, in cooperation with an atmospheric re-molecular transgression stabilizer unit, an ample amount of time to cleanse the planet of every trace of the control subjects, their altered DNA, and the unfortunate earthers that are not being transported to Annunak."
Captain Xarr paused and looked at us as if waiting to answer our questions.
He seemed to have taken a liking to me for some reason, so I figured that if I opened my fucking pie hole I might not be told to shut it, so I asked the officer in charge.
"What happens then Captain?"
"After the control subjects and the earthers that did not make the final cut have been properly exterminated, and the planet has been deemed duly cleansed by an authorized sanitation team.
Then what usually happens on planets like this one, is after the recommended hiatus of the Annunaki people.
For a short period of time, one or two hundred of your planets solar orbits, possibly less depending on how soon and how many Annunaki are killed by the brutish wildlife, it will be used as a hunting preserve for the elite of the Annunaki race.
Then once it has been determined that hunting the pre-extinction bipedal carnivorous creatures is too dangerous for the civilian population to continue their endeavors, the animals will be put down in a massive planet-wide extinction event identical to past events that the Annunaki scientists have triggered.
