by Ayman Ghalit
Mort prepared to set off to Earth by sending probing beams that he intended to follow after thirty minutes. And while waiting for that, he opened a locker where he stored a golden ore in. He picked it up and gently swept it. It was smooth, bright, and cold. He then kissed it, and smilingly said, “Don’t forget this, kids. We are filthy rich now. I can invasion delightful days ahead.”
Bob hummed, and said after taking the ore from him, “Always romantic toward solid object, aren’t you Mort! hmm? I can now sense how precious this thing is right now. But, I do have a troublesome quarry.”
“Do ask, my dearest Bob.” Smilingly, Mort replied.
“How are we going to sell all of this? I mean, it’s too much. Do you think that the government will turn a blind eye on us? Do you think they will not notice this and start to ask how and where?”
“It seems that this bile of fat made you a shortsighted person. This will go straight to the black market, kid. The government will know nothing about this.”
“I know about the black market,” Bob replied. “But, I don’t know where it is?”
Kaiser answered, “The black market is a metaphor for any place of trade that occur without the government awareness or permission.”
Carl added, “In short, any market that doesn’t generate tax money for governments. Besides, you must know that there is a buyer for anything on sale. Let alone gold!”
“This is becoming promising, indeed.”
A Moment of realization landed on them when they all took a look at the heaped gold they had gathered. The gold will make them rich for more than hundreds of years if it split equally. Making them dream and desire what they wanted. Kaiser thought only about bringing the gold money to his family, stable them financially, and prove to his dad that he is the son every father dream of. Jack thought only about his beloved one; Nora. He almost felt her beside him, thinking, “With that amount of money, every tenacious spirit shall be succumbed, and every barrier shall melt.”
Bob envisioned himself courted by a fair woman. He will get a beautiful girl by that amount of money. He thought about getting in shape, from having his own private gym, to going under the surgent blade to shrink his stomach and to suck out his fat. Mort concerned only about comfort and vengeance. He will quit this way of life, and will make those who mocked him eat their heart out. He thought about settling for good. He thought about buying a house on a tropical sunny beach where a new bashful and tanned young wife awaits him inside. But for Gael, he concerned only about his reconciliation with his father.
Bob felt all pumped up, and brought them back to reality, saying, “That is way too promising, considering gold is our commodity. So, how are we going to… you know, split the share?”
Jack rolled his eyes up in hopelessness, saying, “Mort is totally right, the redundant fat that covers you surly made you shortsighted and retarded. The split is going to be divided on six. That’s make it… hmm?”
“16.66% for each one of us.” Carl answered.
“Fair enough for me.” Bob smilingly replied.
“Negative!” Mort, who closed his eyed, responded.
“What do you mean?” asked Gael.
“The split will be 70% for me, and the other 30% will be divided upon you.”
Gael tauntingly chuckled, “Like we are going to allow that to happen.”
With eyes full of seriousness, Mort looked Gael hard in the eyes, and said, “It will be like that, whether you liked it or not.”
“It will be on my cold dead body.”
“Don’t provoke me, kid. This is the fair apportion.”
“How the fuck is it fair? You are taking us as fools and want to devour everything? We’re not that stupid, greedy idiot.”
“Don’t mouth off, kid! This is the fair share. By My ship, and as it’s Captain, I discovered the Phugwaks plant. I brought you in, and I carried you and the gold out of it. I sacrificed parts of my ship to create a space to carry more gold, and don’t forget, I sacrificed Olivia’s Stone that saved your asses.”
“Screw you and your stupid rusty ship. Each one of us shall take 16.66%. This is the fair share.”
Mort angrily roared, “Watch your tongue, kid! or I will snip it out from your mouth.”
Carl stood in-between, and urged, “Calm down, and let’s search for a solid ground. Mort is right, he should take more than us, but not 70%. Each one of us will take 16%. And that will leave 4%. Mort shall take it, and that will make your share 20%.”
“Nay! 70% is what I rightfully shall take. It is actually 80%, but because I am a handsomely generous man, I waived 10% for you to take.”
“How magnanimous!” Gael chuckled. “Fuck off. You will never take 70%, nor will you take the 20%. I shall not abide till I see us equal in share. As equal as the comb teeth.”
Mort felt so bothered and was gritting on teeth, “Equality is not just,” he said. “This is a fact. Do you find it right to give everyone in this ship the same shirt size? That will make Bob so very unhappy. Just as I am not happy with 16 nor 20. 70% is the most reasonable and fair distribution.”
“Going philosophical, I see! No, we shall take the same share whether it was on your stupid ship, or not.”
“Mind your tongue kid, this is the last warning.”
“What are you going to do? you bald greedy old man.”
A moment of challenging silence and daring glances filled the room. Mort stood, and with a grim face, he went to the control panel, and turned to Gael as he was rapidly pressing some buttons, saying, “The share will be just as I said, nothing less nothing more. If not! Then, I have adjusted the ship’s speed to maximum, and I will randomly turn it to let it march heedlessly in space till the end of time!”
Fright they felt when Mort bared his true avaricious persona. But Gael cared not about his threat as he was sure he lacks the guts to do such reckless act.
“Mort! Don’t do this.” Kais urged.
“Don’t let him push me further then.”
Bob, who was in disbelieve, said, “Dudes! c’mon, we should agree on something, no? I mean, let there be a happy ending at least.”
With frowning and serious face, Gael looked Mort hard in the eyes, and said, “If you think that you are a man, do it.”
“Don’t make me, kid. It is just a finger movement.”
“Then do it,” said Gael, who stood and went to Mort while cracking his knuckles, ready to swing a punch.
“Careful, kid!” he warned.
They tried to reason them, but when Gael reached Mort, the ship suddenly shook, dropping both of them on the floor. Then, loud pulsating and vibrating waves disturbed the ship as it involuntarily started to move toward its right side.
“What have you done?” roared Gael, who grabbed the seat legs to stay still.
“I did nothing. Something is pulling the ship!”
“Then do something!” Kaiser shouted.
Mort hardly reached the panel, and helplessly tried to turn on the ship to escape, but it didn’t function. He told them after losing all hope that there is nothing he can do, and urged them to set and fasten their seat belt.
Gael reached one of the seats as they all did what Mort advised them to do. Then, dark doubts stormed their heads about the source of this accelerating power. “Is it a black hole?” Jack nervously asked Carl who was grunting from the compressing power, barley, he answered, “I don’t know, but surly it... it is so powerful. Damn it, the ship is moving so fast!”
The power of the gravitational waves was intense, escalating fast, and putting unbearably squeezing pressure on them that made it difficult to speak. The electrical power went off shortly after, leaving them in an absolute darkness where one can’t even see his hand! Kaiser felt as if someone is squeezing his organs out. Slowly, he goes unconscious while tottering on his chair. He can hear the grunting of his friends silenced one by one till it went all dead quiet. His eyes grew heavy while still trying to resist, but insignificant and helpless he was compa
red to this unknown power. Eventually, he fainted following his friend into this surprising slumber!
The Power Source
A bright white light pierced through the lashes of Kais’s eyes. His pupils were dilated. And when he slowly opened his heavy eyes, a sudden mild headache stroked him fast when he directly glanced at the light source that instantly shrank his pupils. He was in an utter confusing, asking, “Am I dead? Where am I? Is this death?”
Tired and weary he was when he slowly recalled what happened. He then barely stood while outstretching his hand to block the light. He let out a relieving sigh, knowing that he is not alone when he looked at his friends whom was yet to wake. He grabbed and shock Carl’s shoulder to wake him, “Carl… Wake up... wake up, you got to see this!”
Fatigued, Carl’s condition was when he woke up. He looked at the light source to be also stroked by bright-light headache. “What happened?” he asked, while blocking the bright light by his palm. Kaiser nodded in ignorance. Moments after, the light slowly dims, revealing an enormous laminated metallic structure that spins clockwise except for its stable middle that was showing a glowing greenish writing, that reads “JuMaDa.”
A spec was Mort’s ship compared to what it was facing. The ship regained its power, and when everything went back to function, Kais woke up his friends who slowly regained their consciousness. Some were feeling muscle cramps, and others were feeling slightly dizzy. Fear they felt form this brushed metallic structure, wondering “What is this?” Nobody got a clue, except for Carl who astonishingly said. “This is JuMaDa!”
“What’s that?” asked Bob.
“It is the one that Arthur the Mad stole!”
Jack confusingly asked, “Arthur! The Arthur? You mean the one with the big bounty on his head? What make you so sure?”
“There are only three megaships this size, and it all belong to the Mother Empire: JuMaDa, JuAaDa, and KuMa. The biggest was JuMaDa, Arthur’s ship. JuAaDa went to retirement, and now is for show in planet Ken, in the Phone Cords Solar System. The White Nebula Battel with the Python Eye Solar System, proved that size doesn’t matter in space battles, especially against smaller ships that is faster, harder to hit, less expansive, and easily can go to mass production. KuMa was the flagship in that battle against the Python Eye’s fleet which was personally led by its ruler, Henriette the Behemoth. KuMa’s Captain was Chlodwig Bernhardt, wildly known as The Pledge Sentinel. Henriette’s battle ships were small, fast, and almost uncountable. They surprisingly balanced the battle to their favor thanks to an impassable asteroid belt that was unknown to the Mother. The small and the outdated battleships of Henriette, that Leonard previously mocked and laughed at, impressively destroyed his army and severely damaged KuMa. Chlodwig, who realized that defeat is inevitable, swore that they will not lay a finger on KuMa while under his watch and oath no matter what. For that, he adjusted his ship toward a hypergiant start and ventured with lightspeed toward it for the sake of keeping his oath. They say that KuMa melted a thousand miles before the star... And the last megaship out there is JuMaDA, and we are beholding it right now.”
Mort eagerly wanted to disbelieve this dreadful news, saying, “Heartwarming indeed. But what makes you so sur—!”
The metallic structure, which began to spin again, shut Morton up. And as it began to slowly pull the ship again, Jack nervously asked, “What is happening?”
Carl answered, “It is the ship gravitational pincer that is pulling us.”
The ship’s Gravity-Pincer has a horseshoe shape with two pointy ends that is 3 miles away. A noisy, pulsing, and vibrating gravity waves disturbed their hearing again. Slowly, the ship goes toward a huge hexagon gate which opened in the center of the metallic structure. The ship got pulled to what looked like a hanger. And when inside, after the hexagon gate got closed, an artificial gravity activated. The ship slowly landed on a dark area. Shortly after, the room filled up with air, and scanning-cameras arms with linear red-lasers descended from the roof and began to scan the ship form nose to rear. Followed by a calm robotic-female voice,
“Warning… Warning… Warning… Evacuate the ship immediately.
Hostile actions will result in an undesirable casualty.”
Mort, who realized the truth, angrily bit on his lips saying, “Shit, shit… damn it! They will surly going to take my gold.”
“It is not your gold,” said Gael. “Besides, is this what really concerning you right now?”
“Yes, yes. What else should it be.”
“Now what are we going to do?” Bob asked.
“We did nothing wrong,” Carl said. “Let us obey the orders for now. And we will try to reason them later.”
“Reason? You are talking about Arthur!” said Jack.
“Regardless, we did nothing wrong.”
“This is your last Warning... Evacuate the ship immediately.
Hostile actions will result in an undesirable casualty.”
Before they evacuate the ship as commanded, Carl swiftly hid his phone in a place that he hoped will never be searched. Then, they evacuated it the ship with arms up in air. The buzzing roof cameras descended and scanned them from head to toe. After that, they heard a slamming opening door, followed by bunch of marching footsteps approaching. The lights went on, showing a dozen of masked and fully armed determined soldiers pointing their big guns toward them. “Arm up! Face to the wall!” a soldier roared.
Mort wanted to negotiate, but one of them aggressively pushed him against the wall and roared, “Shut your mouth, and do what we say.”
They searched them and took all their belonging. Then, they forcibly twisted their arms behind their backs and cuffed them. Kaiser gave a tiresome sigh when he heard the cuffing click, saying, “When we thought it is all over.”
They exit the hanger, and dragged them toward what looked like a bullet-train. “Where are you taking us?” jack worryingly said, but no one answered him, rather, they pushed them in the train that immediately sat off. Moments later, the train exit the hanger’s tunnel, revealing the sight of the infamous ship; JuMaDa.
It was an enormous ship that is 150-mile-long and about 50 miles wide. Its highest point was the main control tower which was two-mile long. The biggest ship known to man, JuMaDa, the legendary military ship, was an inhabitable city on its own. With advanced artificial gravity system, spontaneous power generators, atoms converter plants, suitable agricultural areas, climate and weather maintaining units, and air supplying factories. It has multiple gravity pincers that can pull various objects from 9 light minutes distance. The biggest and most advanced is S4100x, which is so powerful it can pull planets the size of Earth’s moon, control its climate, rotation, and slow or accelerate its night-day cycle. It is true that JuMaDA has lots of cutting edge technology, but it is not what made it fearsomely unique. What made it the favorite ship for Leonard the Lancet, is that it has the dooming Plasma Cannon ‘Ender.’ Which is capable of destroying a whole planet. It is the ship that made every solar leader let out a relieving sigh when the news came revealing that Arthur has defected and ran away with it.
Surly the ship was great, but the guys found it nothing but a ghost ship. Dark, bleak, and almost empty. There were lots of residential districts with suitable accommodations and housing complex, yet no sign of life what so ever. The streets were vacant and dead. Dark was its norm, except for some glittering lights sourced by the faraway apartments. And due to the ship flat surface, it felt almost infinite when nothing was disappearing in the horizon. The silent masked soldiers heaped their burden and doubt. And while feeling completely jaded and tired, Kaiser was staring at his shoes thinking about his calm home that he deeply misses.
After about half an hour, the train arrived at the main control-tower station whereas another group of soldiers were awaiting them by a car. Then they bundled them in it, and sat-off to the main control tower. And after fifteen minutes, they arrived to be escorted by another group of soldiers to the 170th floor in the main tower
where Arthur was eagerly awaiting them.
Glorified and Vilified
The escorting soldiers knocked Arthur’s office door, and after about ten minutes, he allowed them to enter. Cold, the office was when they dragged them in. There were three men in the room, Arthur son of William son of Adalbert, was the easiest one to recognize due to the endless online wanted-posts. But they found him much older, with a long grey hair that reaches his back and slightly twirled thick mustache. Wearing his neat and elegant bluish military uniform, he met them with a smiling face that clearly was not welcoming.
In the same room, sitting on a brown leathery chair, was General Hunfried Gere, the one who personally killed the ferocious Virgo’s General, Tahbert the Black. He killed him with a hollow steel rod by beating him to a pulp with repetitive hits on the face after fallen in captivity. He then chopped off his leg and made a smoke-pipe out of his Tibia bone!
In the other side of the room, a man calmly sitting on another brown leather chair, he was General Ulz Kuhlbert, who was amongst the wanted men. He was the mastermind who planned their victory against the Virgo Empire in their last battle; known as The Fading Stars, which reaped more than 20 million soles in one day.
Arthur told the escorting soldiers that they are no longer required, and after that, he stood, widely outstretched his arms, and smilingly said, “Well! This is a queer occasion, indeed. I do believe that I am well acquainted to you, no?”
They paused silent for a moment, then Carl replied, “Yes, we know you. You are General Arthur.”
With tibia-pipe in hand, Hunfried filled his lungs with smoke, exhaled after coughing twice and calmly said “Arthur the Mad, or Arthur the Praiseworthy?”
His question met with a muted respond. Arthur then added, “Now, do tell. Have I been a part of your dreams? I mean, have you ever daydreamed about capturing me and earn that juicy bounty? To capture the traitor, the deceiver, the evil one, and jump to the hall of fame to live a kingly life? *chuckled* It is truly heartwarming knowing there is someone is dreaming about you. but, alas, not all dreams come true. *He then turned aggressive and loudly roared* SPEAK! you worthless maggots. How did you find this place?”
