by H. T. Kofruk
The operation had to be quick and clean. No survivors could be left, especially the survivors of the Janpu attack. It would take perhaps an hour for Pacific monitors in the area to pick up unauthorized wormhole activity and relay that information to their Command. Once that happens, a Pacific fleet could be there within minutes. To be on the safe side, he set the mission time for forty-five minutes. That would be twenty minutes to scan the surface and then the next twenty for total bombardment of the identified targets. The last five would be for their escape back into Chinese territory.
He decided that only the main mothership of the fleet would leave while the rest would stay near the borders of the empire. If the Pacific Federation suspected them, which they surely would, they would no doubt amass their fleets in protest. The Atlantic Alliance would also soon put the dots together and start confrontation. A diplomatic solution would be reached, perhaps even to the disadvantage of the New Han Empire. But keeping the new alien army a secret would reap much larger benefits. The universe would soon be theirs.
Chapter 14: Birth
‘Being a member of the Chinese Imperial Family is a treacherous business at best. It is a prime example of misplaced faith in something as irrelevant and misinterpreted as bloodline.” - Vijaykumar Singh, Peace Alliance ambassador to the Chinese Empire, 2663-2673.
The native uprising on planet Halmak had been quelled. His regiment had been called in not only to subdue the revolt but also to rebuild vital installations and restore order and local confidence. It seemed to be all he was good for. No missions of glory were given to him.
But that suited him fine. He was happy to be far from home and didn’t have to suffer the verbal abuses of his father. His father had long criticized him for his ‘softness’. It turned out, however, that this was useful in many ways. Conquering in order to rule meant that the needs of the conquered needed to be addressed some time or other. His father and brother were too obtuse and chauvinistic for this kind of job so it fell on him.
Fann was the second son of the Emperor. His mother, who had died when he was just a toddler, had been the Empress and he had been expected to succeed the Imperial Bloodline. His half-brother, Xiao, was conceived a month later than him but it was as if he already wanted the title of the Walking God. At first, the doctors didn’t expect his prematurely born brother to survive. When he did, they expected him to have some kind of mental condition that would become apparent as he grew.
Though first-born, Xiao was not the legitimate son of the Emperor and, hence, had no claim to the Dragon Throne. His mother, a high-ranking concubine, was famed for her beauty and skills in music and brush calligraphy. She was, nonetheless, even more known for her ambitious nature.
The previous Empress’s death was officially an accident but rumours spread among the people that it was an act of treachery. And the people who gained the most were Xiao and his mother. Fann was just a toddler when he was stripped of the title Crown Prince. All that meant for him at the time was that he would not be able to wear yellow anymore and his dragon-shaped brooch would be given to his slightly elder half-brother.
Maybe that was it. Fann didn’t care anymore. Whether it was because of his premature birth or his father’s genes, Xiao, the new Crown Prince, suffered from frailty. Although he never participated in battle due to his weak health, he somehow acquired the position of Admiral of the Navy. And it was Xiao who recommended to his father that Fann be sent to the outskirts of the Empire to prove himself. After all, Xiao had always been jealous of him. Even with the Imperial Media constantly broadcasting the feats of the Crown Prince, Fann was always the most loved, even by alien subjects.
Fann had heard of the new weapons program spearheaded by Crown Prince Xiao. And now, he had to endure his gloating on the holographic projector.
“I have seen footage and it was the most one-sided battle if I ever saw one” said the Crown Prince, his squinty eyes beaming. “Father has already congratulated me. Once we proceed as planned with this one, I will be loved as the one behind the consolidation of the Yinhexi.”
“Many congratulations, my brother. I am sure the people love you already” said Fann
“Always the flatterer, younger brother. But how is it you still languish at the rank of colonel? Why hasn’t Father elevated you to the rank of general yet?”
“I don’t have the wisdom or experience to be a general. For the moment, I enjoy what I am doing.”
His brother tut-tutted. “Fann, you and I have inherited divine blood. Our blood elevates us beyond the capacity of normal people. That is why Father saw me fit for my current rank.”
“I still have much to learn. When Father thinks I am ready, perhaps…”
He was cut off by his brother. “I am sorry little brother. I have just received word of an important message. Remember, you are a divine being.”
With that, the projector went blank. A divine being, Fann thought to himself. When he was in battle and injured, he certainly didn’t feel divine. He felt as mortal as any life form. If he was divine, then how was it that he felt the same pains, lusts and emotions as a mortal?
How was it that modern genetic engineering technology was necessary to revive his bloodline if he were a god? He thought his very existence was an abomination. It was as if a dinosaur or mammoth was revived and set to become lord of the land once more. After almost three thousand years of demise, Chinese politicians and scientists decided that the ancient legacy of the Han dynasty, considered by many as the zenith of Chinese culture, needed to be revived. The last Han emperor’s incomplete gene sequence was acquired with the gaps filled in by that of other famous Chinese. The test tube baby that was born of this experiment was hailed as the new emperor of the vast New Han Empire. That was his great, great, great grandfather.
But he knew that this was a big joke. China had lost so much of its culture and heritage during the communist period that the various rituals and rites were cherry-picked from what was known. Five thousand years of culture and history was trying to be squeezed into the new empire. He had met some Afrikans who jokingly called it the Reverse-Cultural Revolution. He knew that the only thing binding the Empire together was the Chinese thirst for glory and sheer military might. Though they despised the practices and religion of the Atlantic, he thought that everything they were doing was almost straight out of the twentieth century Nazi handbook, his father being Hitler and his brother next.
But even Hitler didn’t turn the conquered Polish or French into a terrible mindless army. Although even he was out of the loop concerning the weapons project, his brother’s constant gloating gave him a rough idea about what his people were doing. We will pay one day for what we are doing.
***
Meanwhile, Xiao had just received word that survivors of the Janpu attack had been located and Admiral Liu was on his way to destroy them. A sudden anger gripped him. Had he not given specific orders that absolutely no survivors could be left to escape? That old fool Liu was bound to make a mess of things. If only he had not been one of his father’s most trusted friends, his head would be hanging on the gates of the Palace.
But he liked the Shadow, Captain Qin, who was working on the project. His initial input for the combat training data used to condition the aliens was most satisfactory. And yet again, he had been able to infiltrate the enemy and enable the experiment. He decided to keep a mental note of that one; he was either too competent to keep far away, or too dangerous to keep alive.
Precautions had to be taken. The first batch of ten thousand alien soldiers was not enough to conquer the galaxy. The second batch of triple that number was almost reaching maturity and would be combat ready within days. The third batch was still undergoing conditioning while the fourth batch was approaching hatching. Soon, they would number in the hundreds of thousands.
He looked with satisfaction at the vast incubation centre where a million eggs were currently being incubated with robots tending to them. Thousands of rows of incubation pods, stacked
hundreds of stories high, held the large, brown Nikruk eggs. Each of them was closely watched by the Web-Com and any unusual movements would be immediately reported to the tending robots.
A few hundred of the injured and maimed aliens from the Janpu combat had arrived to the centre. They would become the ‘fathers’ for the next batch. Not knowing that drinking the modified sap of the trees would kill them immediately, they sat obediently and drank the purple liquid when it was given to them.
Xiao enlarged a holograph of one of the aliens about to drink the liquid. Without any change to his facial expression, he drank a small dose. The euphoria imprinted on his face was not lost on Xiao. In a few seconds, the soft, pale parts of the alien’s face including the eyes became hard and dark, after which the creature stopped breathing and became a statue. A robot glided to him and carried him to the extraction centre. Technology had enabled them to extract up to ten eggs from a single alien corpse if the right nutrients were given, boosting their production rate.
One of the eggs stirred. Xiao looked intently. The hatching of these creatures gave him immense pleasure to watch. He felt like a true god watching his creations come to light. The brown egg was soon showing light brown cracks as it swayed back and forth. The tiny alien inside, no larger than a human forearm, was giving his everything to see the world outside. Finally, after a couple minutes of struggle, a tiny hand emerged, and then another. The two hands pulled apart the tough shell and when the hole was large enough, a small face emerged.
The faces of the genetically modified ones were somehow different. They had the innocent, helpless look, the way babies should be. The natural-born hatchlings on the Nikruk home planet, however, had an unsettling intensity to them. Though they were very similar to what he was looking at now, their yellow eyes looked around not in helplessness but in curiosity and verification. They knew what they were looking at; an all-knowing baby. He remembered his first viewing of a natural born hatchling, how it had looked at him and given a sneer, as if to say he wasn’t welcome to watch such a sacred event.
A robot glided toward the new hatchling that was chirping for care. It grabbed the young hatchling with a cold, metal claw and without any hesitation injected a white liquid in its neck. The hatchling immediately stopped chirping and looked into the air with vacant eyes. Another warrior would soon be moulded.
Chapter 15: No Loose Ends
‘But what is the source of this division, one might ask. The most potent cause is nothing more than religion. This may sound like an oxymoron to many but whereas religion is generally seen to be a device to come to terms with death, Renden religions often take on the additional role of dictating life.’ – Xhavo vo Kaur, Janpek Historian,
Almost a month had passed since they had arrived on Kheut. Terry was getting restless and constantly aggravated the base communications officer. He had now given up hope on the electronic message and now waited for the communication wormhole to open up. Despite his frustration, he was careful to appear encouraging to his men. Four dozen highly trained soldiers with nothing to do were dangerous so he had to keep them occupied to avoid friction with their host Pacific Federation troops.
Terry and Heera saw each other almost every night. The Atlantic soldiers knew of their relationship but none dared confront the formidable Terry Southend. But Heera sometimes got a whiff of their dissatisfaction when she was tending the injured.
“So you are an atheist?” asked one of the marines in sick bay with a thick French accent.
“Sergeant, my faith is my personal business” she answered “and I expect you to end your sentences addressed to me with ‘ma’am’.”
“I was just curious, ma’am” he said sheepishly.
It was time for lunch. One of the curious things that she noticed about herself was that her body rhythm still functioned at a twenty-four hour rate. Even though the days were shorter here, her body reacted as if she were still on Earth. She had trouble digesting all the three meals ingested during the shorter period.
She walked out of the sick bay and breathed in the clear air. Funnily enough, it reminded her of the crisp autumn air of her home town back on Earth. She was reminded of the red maple trees standing around the one giant yellow gingko tree near her childhood home in Busan. As a child, she had conjured up an image of a group of red kittens adopted by a golden Labrador retriever whenever she saw the group of trees in the autumn. Nearby had stood a tall, thin pine tree, recalling the deciduous trees of their original summer colour.
The green vegetation outside the walls of the garrison was mostly fern-like plants. Some tree-like plants were evolving near the river that flowed a few hundred meters from the walls. The red and yellow autumn trees of her home would have been right at home here, she thought.
“Feeling homesick?” asked a voice behind her that she instinctively knew.
“No, not really. Just thought that the place could use some trees” she lied.
Terry was standing behind her. She turned around to face him. He had a wicker basket in his right hand. It looked out of place in the hands of a war veteran, she thought. She looked at his face. It had changed in the past few days. Though he had the same crew-cut mouse brown hair, the deep-set brown eyes and the strong, masculine jaw, his expression was less serious, more playful. His years as a marine had left a permanent vertical wrinkle between his two brows and now, it seemed that it was somehow disappearing.
He smiled one of his innocent smiles. “Care to check out what’s out there?” he asked.
She nodded. The two passed by the personnel heading towards the dining facility and stopped at a pulse-propelled vehicle, next to which a Pacific soldier was standing. Terry winked at the soldier who threw him his keys. “You owe me” the soldier said as he walked away. The engine ignited and the distortion in the air created by the two pulse waves became visible. The waves ran under the vehicle, up the back, across the roof and then back down under the vehicle, acting as two invisible ‘wheels’.
“How did you get access to this vehicle?” asked Heera as soon as they exited the garrison gate. But all she got in return was a mischievous grin.
“Where are we going?” she asked again.
“Just somewhere where I can hear you talk in peace” he answered.
He always loved her voice and her way of speaking. He had once told her that it soothed him. But also he found her profoundly interesting. She spoke in a way that no one else spoke. She was passionate and cold at the same time. She peppered her long threads of logical thought with warm personal feelings. Although he was afraid of being sucked into her ways of thinking, he couldn’t resist.
They had driven for about ten minutes and had come roughly twenty miles down the river. The pulse waves subsided and the vehicle landed gently on the ground. They walked to a primitive tree and passed a group of fern on the way. To their surprise, the ferns were not ferns at all but some kind of animal. When they approached, they folded in their leaves and rushed away like rapid centipedes. An animal that does photosynthesis, thought Heera. She would do some research on it during her free time.
Heera sat on the river bank while Terry skimmed a pebble on the water surface.
“Amazing what God created” said Terry. “So many shapes and colours and textures.”
“And yet humans can create so much destruction”
Terry looked at Heera. He knew what she was talking about. He had killed so many during his military career but had blocked out the guilt with faith. It was the only way he remained sane and he knew it. This was not lost on Heera who knew all too well the soft innocence he possessed inside the tough exterior.
He sat down beside Heera and opened the wicker basket. Inside were two sandwiches he had clumsily prepared. Heera laughed out loud on seeing them. She grabbed one of them and could see that he had taken the time to prepare the scarce ingredients.
“Heera, I…” he hesitated. “Tell me about your faith, your g
od.”
She was surprised at this request. At the same time, she was worried that his faith was weakening and he was in danger of breaking down. She didn’t even want to imagine how many lives he had taken and how. During the past weeks they shared together, she became aware of the unstable balance in his mind.
“I don’t believe in a specific god, Terry” she started answering. “But I’m not an atheist either. I believe that thinking Rendens are the most supreme beings in the universe is awfully arrogant. But whether the Supreme Being is Allah, Buddha or Jehovah, I really can’t say. In a way, perhaps the Supreme Being wants to be left unknown. Why would he create just to be worshipped?”
Terry nodded. “Indeed, why would he create so his offspring could destroy and kill?”
Heera looked intently at Terry. She touched his cheek and he put his hand on top of her hand. A breakdown would be inevitable. Would it be better if she were the source?
“I’ve never told anyone about this but…”
His sentence was cut off by an alarm emanating from the garrison. Heera turned on her communicator to see what the problem was. Jeff, the head doctor, answered.
“What’s the problem, Jeff?” she asked.
“Apparently, our monitors have picked up a planetary sensor. Someone is in orbit and trying to see what’s on the surface.”
“What does that mean?”
“A planetary invasion” said Terry before Jeff could answer.
Heera couldn’t believe her ears.
“But why? Why would anyone want to invade this planet? It’s not even a frontier planet. Nothing of significance has been discovered. So why?” she questioned. But in her mind, she knew the answer.
Terry grabbed the communicator from Heera and spoke into it. “You need to tell everyone that they need to evacuate the installation. If they’ve completed a scan, they’ll obviously follow it with an attack. You don’t have the defences to deter a full scale orbital attack.”
