by Frank Carey
“What is it?” Rex asked.
“He’s wearing a Tailtiu flight suit.” I looked closer and read the nametag. “I think we found Joshua.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The mission parameters were thrown out the window when we found the library. Once the other teams realized they were all talking to Mykla through a gigabit network, they called Tailtiu and requested they be moved to our location. Soon the terminal room was filled with researchers of every ilk and discipline, all aided by the massive AI known only as Mykla.
The captain decided to land the Tailtiu at the spaceport while continuing orbital scans using the ship’s complement of probes, except for two, which were routed to the last known location of Team Six, who were now twenty-four hours overdue.
I sat and stared at the screen while trying to force myself not to worry about Hiram and the others. Hiram could take care of himself. I knew this, but I was still worried.
“You seem troubled, Dr. Syron,” Mykla said as she appeared in the seat next to mine. “I detect elevated levels of hormones in your bloodstream associated with worry. Perhaps I could help.”
“No, it’s just one of our teams hasn’t checked in, and I’m worried about them.”
“I see. Perhaps I could be of assistance,” she said as she tilted her head just so.
“Thank you for the offer. What do you know about a complex located here?” I asked as I brought up a map of the planet and pressed a spot corresponding to Team Six’s site.
“Guardian Research Center. Top Secret installation where the Guardian Project was housed. All guardians on Venlanta were produced there. It is also the nexus point for the Venlanten Diaspora.”
“Tell me about this diaspora,” I asked while sitting back in my chair and turning to a fresh page in my notebook. “What happened?”
“To put it bluntly, Doctor, all hell broke loose, and in one day, the world completely changed.”
###
“What’s happening? Report, dammit,” Gen. Toask yelled as the screens around him went dark. He moved from console to console, stabbing at buttons while incessantly spinning the bracelet around his left wrist. Some say that bracelet was recording every thought of his and transmitting it back to one of his infernal computer systems. The general was a big believer in life after death.
“A virus has infected the main computer. Systems are dropping offline like flies.” Col. Frisk yelled back as he pounded a console.
“Get them back. Implement countermeasures!”
“Sir, we’ve implemented every countermeasure we have, but the virus has defeated them all. Defensive systems are down, missile sites are disabled, and our ground forces are in total disarray.”
“Implement Hades protocol,” the General commanded.
“Sir, that’ll kill everyone left and send the planet into an ice age.”
“I refuse to allow a bunch of lower-caste mutants to take this planet from us,” the General said as he drew his sidearm and aimed it at the colonel. Before the General could pull the trigger, a shot rang out, piercing the general's black heart and killing him instantly. As he crumpled to the ground, his bracelet beeped once before joining the general in death.
Frisk looked over and saw Capt. Syron standing in a doorway, her gun still smoking. “Thank you, Captain. You may have just saved what’s left of the Venlanten race. Lt. Aries, I am taking command.”
“Yes, sir,” the Lieutenant said followed by a sigh of relief.
“Signal our troops to stand down,” The colonel said, “then send a signal to the Guardian Force Leader informing her of our unconditional surrender.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, our troops are standing down, as are the guardian forces. Force Leader Max One would like a word with you outside. She says it’s a beautiful day.”
“Very good. Capt. Syron with me. The rest of you secure your stations. I expect this place will soon be crawling with guardians. Cooperate fully with them. That's an order.”
“Yes, sir,” the Lieutenant said as everyone in the room saluted.
Once in the elevator and heading to the surface, the colonel leaned against the back wall and thought about the immediate future. “Fiona, do you think they’ll shoot me when I get up there?”
“Maybe. They seem really pissed at us.”
“They're especially pissed at the royals. Dammit, I warned the general this would happen if we kept treating the guardians like animals, but he wouldn’t hear me. Tell me Fi, do your people really believe in their own divinity?”
The captain took off her helmet and shook out her long red hair. “We did, but not so much now. Watching a bunch of lower-caste mutants kick the asses of the Elite Venlanten Defense Force has a way of persuading one to rethink their position in life.”
“Is that what you think of me, Fiona? A low-caste?”
Fiona smiled. “Does it matter what I thought? Right now, I’m thinking they’re going to kill me the moment they find out I’m a member of the royal caste, before feeding off my dead flesh and throwing my stripped bones to the four points of the compass.”
“You should write fiction. But not to worry. No harm will come to you or anyone under my command,” the colonel said.
“And you know this how?”
“I’ll kill every last one of them if they even look at you the wrong way. Royal or not, you’re under my protection. They will honor the surrender, or I will light this grenade off under their leader's ass,” he said as he palmed a small green device. Fi was horrified to see it was a small, low-yield nuke. She then saw the look in the colonel’s eyes and her world-view shifted. With a crystal clarity born of necessity, she realized she had lived a lie her whole life. All members of the royal caste had.
The elevator door opened and they found themselves at one end of two lines of a guardian honor guard, which saluted them as they walked out between the two rows.
“Hello, Colonel, Captain. Didn’t I say it was a beautiful day out?” Max One said as she took the captain by the arm and led them both out onto the field next to the command center.
The colonel looked at her for a moment before he unslung his weapon and handed it to her. “I formally surrender my command to you, Guardian Leader Max One. I accept full responsibility for what has transpired and await your sentence. The people under my command are innocent of wrongdoing. They were acting under my orders.”
The guardian leader handed the weapon to a member of her group. “Tell me, Colonel, would you really use that nuke in your hand if I were to harm the captain or anyone else under your command?”
“In a heartbeat,” he replied as he activated the dead-man's switch on the grenade. It started to beep a warning.
“Is the general dead?”
“Yes, I…” the colonel started to say.
“I killed him, Leader. He was going to implement the Hades protocol…” the captain said, interrupting the colonel.
“Captain! Stand fast!” the colonel barked.
“Then, Captain, Venlanta owes you a great debt of gratitude. Colonel, you have my word that no harm will come to any of your people. Please…” she said while holding out her hand. Reluctantly, the colonel disarmed the grenade and handed it to her.
“What are you going to do with the survivors?” the colonel asked.
“Well, you can’t stay here. Even though I consider myself, and my people, civilized, I’m afraid they are pissed off at you and yours, especially your royals,” she said with a sharp look in the direction of the captain. “Here’s an idea, why don’t you all get the hell off Venlanta and never darken our doorstep again?”
The colonel was shocked. “You’re talking about millions of…”
“A few thousand, actually. You overestimate your popularity. Most of the lower-castes will not shed a tear at your departure. If you take all the royals, put them on arkships along with a few loyal lower-castes and a few guardians still loyal to your cause, we’ll have you out of our hair in no time. The Leader of the Free Venlantens is
thrilled with the idea.”
“I can’t make…”
“Yes, you can, especially since Captain Syron elected you President of the current royal Venlanten regime.”
“And if we don’t leave?”
“Ever wonder what a corn dog feels like when it drops into the hot fat of a fryer?”
“Then I guess we’ll go. We’ll need time to prepare…”
“Preparations have already been made. The arkships are being fueled as we speak. There are eighteen ships and each is being sent to a different colony planet. We tried to choose new homes where the population won’t kill you on sight.”
“How nice of you. Going to make us up some bon voyage baskets for our staterooms?” the colonel asked out of frustration. His family was from a colony planet. He knew what the future held for the others.
“Colonel, you can stay. Your actions saved a lot of souls on both sides. You have fans amongst the guardians and the lower-casts think of you as being part of the family. The captain, on the other hand, really needs to get off this world.”
“Thank you for the offer, but I have to go with the others. I swore an oath to protect them,” the colonel replied.
“I don’t have to remind you that most of the royals think of you as a pet,” she said.
He looked at Fiona. “Not all of them,” he replied. Snapping to attention, he gave the guardian leader a sharp salute. “Thank you, ma’am, for allowing us this opportunity. Rest assured we'll be back.”
She returned the salute, and with sadness in her eyes, said, “Of that I have no doubt,” to his retreating back. “Just not in our lifetimes.”
###
The silence in the room could be cut with a knife. Several of the team members ran to the bathrooms, sickened by what they had just heard.
“What in the name of all that's holy,” Surrey said as she stared at the screen. I looked back and saw the entire Venlanten contingent standing behind me. “This can't be right.”
“It is accurate,” Mykla said. “I was fully activated five years prior to the diaspora.”
“A caste system on Venlanta? Preposterous. We may have fed on humanity, but we never considered them, or the non-royal Venlantens, slaves,” Ralls, a senior geneticist, said.
“Venlanta colonized the northern part of what is now Britain one hundred years prior to the arkship landing. Ule and I have records of other races colonizing other parts of Earth both before and after the arrival of the arkship. The first Venlanta colony died-out shortly after arriving while the other races eventually left, but your people, the ones aboard the arkship, stayed. They made sure all references to the previous attempt at colonization were erased while hiding all evidence of their arrival. I think your term for their actions would be they tried to lay low.”
“They had no guardians to protect them. They were forced to adapt and blend in,” I said. “Mykla, why did the first colony die-out?”
“Royals and non-royals died due to the lack of naturally occurring nutrient. According to the Tailtiu database, your ancestors found a source in the human population. Congratulations. You lived where the others could not. I can only assume they never thought to feed on another sapient race, even one which they presumably tried to enslave.”
“Wait a minute. Are you telling me our ancestors came to Earth knowing they were probably going to die of malnutrition?”
“Yes. Somehow, one of the colonists must have figured out that drinking human blood would save the Venlanten race. No one may ever know who discovered this, or how they did it. I find no reference to the event in your ship's database.”
I looked up and saw Taliss staring at all of us. “What?” I asked, not sure what to do with this information.
“This information changes nothing. The people Mykla mentions are long dead. You are not those people. Your parents are not those people. Doctor, you of all people should know that the past is the past. We have two pressing tasks: find a cure for the syndrome and find Team Six.
“Taliss is right,” I said. “We need to focus. Sure, our past isn't what we thought it was, but whose is. Dr. Surrey, where are we on a cure for the Syndrome?”
“Close, real close. We've found several references to a condition known as Scourge, which cropped up on several of the colony worlds. It cleared up when the afflicted returned to Venlanta. I'm convinced it's environmental. Since it’s seen on several different planets I'm betting it's due to something missing on those planets, which occurs naturally on Venlanta.”
“But we lived on Earth for over three thousand years before cases of the Syndrome and Relapse began a steep rise in numbers,” I observed.
“This means whatever is missing disappeared recently. We have the AIs doing comparisons between Earth, Venlanta, and the colonies to find out what’s missing. I'll keep you posted.”
I stood up and paced as the others went back to work. I was missing something, something important. Damn! “Mykla, what happened to the Venlantens who stayed behind with the guardians? Where are they?”
“After the arkships left, it was decided to move the remaining population underground in fear of the exiles returning in force in an attempt at retaking the planet. Several centuries later, at the height of the new Venlanten-guardian civilization, a shift in solar output killed off all the sources of Nutrient on the planet. The population was afraid the exiles would return if they found out about the situation, so it was decided to convert the remaining Venlantens into guardians. You see, guardians were designed to not need Nutrient.”
“Wait a minute, I thought guardians were engineered lifeforms,” I said as the information sank in. I looked over and saw the frown on Taliss' face deepen.
“No, the first guardians were once lower-caste Venlantens who were transformed into using a mutagen-plus-nanobot mist. Natural breeding occurred once a sufficient population was established.”
“No wonder they kicked your people out,” Taliss noted. “Mykla, do any of these guardians survive?”
“Many. They live below ground in the cave cities produced by your ancestors. According to your mission profile, Team Six is currently visiting the capitol of the guardian Empire.”
“Shit! Team Six has royals,” Taliss said as she got on the horn with the Tailtiu. “We've put our foot in it now.”
Yeah, and Hiram was, as usual, knee deep in the caca.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The four of us stared at Joshua while Max, and the other guardians at the table next to her, sat down. Once a Venlanten almost indistinguishable from any human, Joshua now had four eyes, four pointed ears, and leathery skin. “Hello, Joshua,” I said. “Had some work done I see?”
Joshua smirked. Oh yeah, that was Joshua all right.
“Silence!” one of the guardians yelled, but Max raised her hand, waving the warrior back to her position under the torches.
“Welcome to Venlanta. I see the promise has been kept after all,” Max said as she stood up and walked down to where we stood.
“What promise?” Rex asked.
“The promise made by one of those expelled three thousand years ago. He said his people would return some day, and now you have.”
“Expelled?” Sue asked as she returned to normal. Seeing this, Rex did the same while Ruby calmed down while continuing to watch the other guardians.
“Ah, you have not been told the truth behind your exile on Earth. No matter. We have more serious things to discuss, such as your fate.”
I really didn’t like the sound of this. I’m getting the impression that the guardians and the royals have history and the rest of us are getting betwixt and between the two sides. “Max, or should I call you My Queen? Anyway, whatever happened at the time of the arkship launch is between two groups of people who are long dead. Rex, Susan, and Joshua were not participants in whatever happened back then.”
“I find it interesting that you can say that after almost being fed on not once, but twice, by the very people you're defending. Then there’s the ma
tter of your relationship with Peter and Natalia. Personally, I would have ripped their throats out and been done with them.”
As God is my witness, I hate tests probably as much as I hate guessing games. She was looking for a response and I just wasn’t giving it, so what does she do? She pushes. A Goranthi would ask you outright what they wanted to know before beating you senseless if you didn’t give the right answer. Time to pull the curtain away and see what’s driving these people.
I walked over to stand inches from Max while the other guardians stood up in shock. Her guards, meanwhile, moved into defensive positions around us with their laser-tipped spears pointing at us. Yep, the damn spears had lasers in their tips. This place gets weirder by the second.
I looked into Max’s four eyes and saw only curiosity. “I’ll admit most of my relationships are strange, but they’re no concern of yours. Lest we all forget, the Tailtiu and her crew are here on a rescue mission, so either get out of our way and let us do our jobs or help us. Either way, the faster we find what we need, the quicker we’ll be out of your hair.” I looked and saw she did indeed have hair.
I was surprised when she laughed while waving her people away. “I like you, Hiram Jones. Too bad we can’t turn you into one of us, for you would be a wonderful addition to our race. You’re right, enough of the bullshit. Come, all of you. We need to talk.” She turned and led us through a door on the side of the Great Hall.
I looked over at Sue and saw her glancing at me then turning away as if she wanted to ask me something. “Spill it,” I said.
“Twice?” she asked, referring to the feeding thing.
“Yeah. I guess I come from a good bloodline,” I replied with a twisted smile.
“You know, I’ve got a cousin…” the ever-helpful Rex started to say before Ruby cuffed him.
Truth be told, I only had a thing for one and only one woman, and she just happened to be a royal. I wish Shanna were here. I could use her help, but more importantly, I missed her something fierce. God, I hoped she was all right.
###
