“Well, there’s one problem with that, sir? They are some who are feeling that they aren’t getting their just due. They’ll think why they should fight when they don’t see you…”
Hector glared into Barca’s face.
“What?” Hector said softly. "They don’t see me as WHAT? As their king? Is that what you were going to say?”
Barca stood silent, knowing that with the wrong answer and he would be sharing a similar fate like the young guard Hector burned.
Luckily, Hector stepped back and chuckled.
“You’re right,” the king said. "I haven’t been doing enough. That’s the problem, isn’t it? Seems that nothing I ever do will be good enough for them. They waiting for some old man to come back from the dead and lead these people back to the greater glory of Nero Santos. Well, I’m going to do one better. I’m going back to the days of Pisanio Santos. See, he didn’t care what people thought of him. He knew what he wanted and went after it with full force.”
Barca saw the sinister smile appeared on Hector’s face.
“Watch, Barca! I'm bringing back the days of the warlords. That’s what these people need in their life. They need someone to shake them up. I’m going to give them that. Me! Hector Bozario Santos! Barca, I don’t care where you get them from. I want some men. Pay them anything they want. If the other soldiers don’t want to fight, then they’ll face a lifetime of torture. See how they’ll feel about that!”
Barca wanted to say the same words Alonso said. He wanted to get out, but he knew that if he left, he would be an open target for sure. So without another sound, he went to the king and kissed the royal Starstriker ring worn by the past leaders before taking his leave.
****
For the rest of 112 B.E., Hector prepared to fight against what his mother started years ago; taking down the same leaders that vowed to protect him if Bianca died before he went to the throne.
Tranio was the first.
Tranio formed his personal army and put up the best fight he could. Even with the small number compared to the thousands for Tranio's army, the Democrat Guards of Crystal Metropolis trained their bodies to become killing machines.
With bloodlust running in their veins, the Democrat Guards were able to penetrate through the Guapa Army and into the palace itself. Until the end, Tranio put up a fight in his palace with all the defenses.
In a final charge trying to defend the former palace of Alejandro Santos, Elibali Tranio was shot and killed with a multiple of bullets. With his dying wish, he hoped that the other leaders wake up to what he was doing.
In the end, his went down in palace rubble and Guapa faced conquest once again under the Santos name.
Before that end, Tranio required a Nova bomb from a gang known as the Republican Field. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to hide it when the attack happened. He never thought Hector would take on a planet of the ATM. It was the last thoughts he had before leading his army to their deaths.
Worse, the Democrat Guards found the Nova bomb and claimed it along with Guapa.
From there, the influx of Democrat Guards took out smaller moons and planets with mini-ratton bombs, smaller versions of the larger Novas made during Nero’s reign. One by one, just as they did years ago against the Pirates of Cyprun Valley, Hector was close bringing the ATM just the way Pisanio Santos did.
Going into the middle of 113 B.E., Hector had the arms trade and most of the issues wanted done with in his order. He wasn't finished with the ATM by a long shot.
The more sadistic Hector became, the more people kept their distance.
Before he could come up with anything, more news came to the Santos Palace. The same gang that supplied the Nova bomb to Tranio was doing the same for others. Hector was amazed this escaped him for so long. He knew that these men were going to be hard to find. So the Democrat Guards investigated on who and where this secret gang was supplying weapons to their enemies.
The more his scouts told him they had nothing, the more frustrated Hector got, and the more he unleashed it on those close to him. Isabella stayed away altogether, so Hector had to use what he could get as a punching bag. Sometimes at night, he would bring at least twenty prostitutes and would abuse them with sex and torture.
It was as if Hector Santos was the main character of his own play or film in a theater. His play was about power, and keeping it at all costs no matter who he had to kill to do it. He had the power to, and in his mind, it was wrong not to exercise it.
****
One day, Hector called on a doctor for a checkup of his body. He called on Iago Fenton, who by this time had his own practice and array of doctors. He had heard his name before when he first came to Crystal Metropolis with his mother and wanted to see if it was true.
For some reason, when he got the call that King Hector wanted to be checked on, Iago wanted to do it himself. So he made the trip on his own to Crystal Metropolis and to the Santos Palace.
Looking at the king, he could see that this was going to be tough. By this time, the king had not been taking care of his body. He had been an alcoholic, a drug addict, and more obsessed with food.
At first, it was a one-sided conversation. Iago checked his vials and muscles. Then, something came out from his mouth that triggered Hector’s mouth.
It was when Iago made a call to another doctor.
Hector didn't hear all of the conversation, but one word Iago said stuck in his head.
Metine.
Not giving him a chance to get himself together, Hector went at him with a santarguo. He cornered him into a wall and put it to his neck.
“What do you know about that?” Hector shouted.
“About what?” Iago said, partially scared and partially calm. He knew that he had seen death enough to face it himself.
“You said something about metine being all over Zestir. What did you mean?”
“Well, I don’t know too much about the planet. All I know is that it was a place where the Republican Field ran most of their operations.”
The Republican Field.
Hector found a connection. He had the gang, and he had the planets. And he was sure to put everything else together as well. He left Iago finished his check-up.
Hector shook Iago's hand and said, "You’ll be recommended more often,” he said, but not of his medical skills.
Hector issued the order. All flagships and fighters would be heading for the Hallow Points. There was no stopping him now. This time, however, he did what most kings would hardly do. He proclaimed that he would join in this fight in the Hallow Points.
If he was going to be like Pisanio, then he had to go into the heat of battle himself, he thought.
****
While Hector was on an ego trip, Queen Isabella’s world was blissful. She and Lucius Gaines had many adventures together. It wasn't even about romance with her that he enjoyed. Maybe, Lucius thought, that all he needed was that connection. There was nothing in their other lives except each other.
Before the madness with Hector spread all over the ATM, they were going on different kinds of vacations. They went to exotic places on their personal space cruiser, the Amoeba, to enjoy the galaxy. They went to places where they were influxes of poor, especially since pirates and criminals ransacked planets and made them their own personal bases. In a friendly gesture on one of their destinations, more defiant than friendly, Isabella issued out her money to a mass of poor patrons.
Throughout their travels, Isabella learned that her world was bigger than Crystal Metropolis and Lucius learned how to smile often and let happiness in.
They settled on Tier in a hotel when they heard the news that Guapa was bombed in the course of making love, courtesy of Hector’s New Universal Order. She knew that this was not going to be easy for any of them. Lucius had a doctor wife and a Democrat Guard son and Isabella's husband could be the cause of their deaths.
For a while, they said nothing about it, hoping it would go away. But the news kept coming
of more attacks. Isabella’s fantasy world diminished more and more every day she had to hear about Hector’s orders of attack. She knew that there was only one thing she could do to stop him.
“I have to kill him,” Isabella told him when they had dinner on the Amoeba two days after the attacks calmed down. “He has to die. It’s time.”
“Are you sure?” Lucius asked.
“You won’t try to stop me?”
“Truthfully, I think you would hate me if I did try to stop you.”
The old Lucius emerged from out of nowhere at the worst time. Isabella was thinking with emotions and not intelligence, which he thought was always dangerous no matter if you were a king or a pilot.
“Well, truthfully, if you tried to stop me,” Isabella said, “I would have to kill you.”
They both laughed.
“I have to do this," Isabella continued. "I should have done it long ago when I thought he had killed my brother. I knew it had his name all over it. Then, the way he treats his mother. I don’t know whose worse, Hector or my father?”
She referred to the time that her mother, Katharina, was killed on the orders of her father, Ichiamo. She had gone through an emotional period inside her heart when she kept so much inside and when she did talk, it was all negative and about her father. She had gotten in from her brother Cassius.
At that moment, she was in tears. He touched her cheek and to Isabella, it was the softest touch she had ever felt.
“You do what you have to do,” he said. "And come back to me. Understand?”
With his blessing, Isabella said, “I need you to do something for me. There’s someone I want you to see. I want you to go to Syra and see this person. Her name is Kira. She’s a fortune-teller.”
“Why see her?”
“If I make it, that’s where I’ll meet you. If not, she would tell you.”
It was kooky, but Lucius said, “Alright. For you, I’ll do it.”
That night, just as Lucius slept in a bed made on the cruiser, Isabella left Lucius’ side and getting a ride arranged from an old friend, headed for the last place she wanted to go...
****
“No one is going to move me from my world. This is mine. All of this is mine, and I’m going to defend it with my life.”
It was the last words Issac said to his former partner as He gathered any tribal warriors he had with him and prepare them for the ultimate fight against the Democrat Guards coming to the Hallow Points.
For days in Zestir, he waited for the day for the soldiers to come down on him, thinking they'll drop from the sky and it would be a fight to the death between armies.
Instead, something else fell from the sky.
They came like shooting stars with minds of their own and they decided to end their lives and take everything else with them. They came down, blowing anything and everything in sight.
Issac saw around him, nothing but fire, either crops or human flesh, burning. He heard their screams. It was the first time since the inception of the gang that he heard screams coming from his own camp. He realized that despite all of the money, power, and numbers in the world, Hector was still the victor in all three just for being a Santos.
He didn't get the chance to see the soldiers come down from flagships when the smoke covered the sky in darkness. Since it was just an island on the planet, the Democrat Guards darkened the sky of the planet with a cloud of smoke so it was like an invisible fence blocking them from exiting.
Issac put his head down in shame, left with the only thing he could do.
His last conversation with Cassio played into his head again.
Issac Arius and Cassio Ramirez made it big with the arms trade since their earlier periods until it was getting out of control. Cassio told him that he had to give it up.
“Why? Just because the king say so? Who is he? A nobody.”
Cassio tried to explain it to him. He tried every way he could. "Don’t you see what’s going on?” he would tell Issac. “You go to war with the king, you might as well kill yourself.”
In his Byzant heart, all Issac saw was that he was the strong one and Cassio was weak for running.
Seeing the end result, he realized Cassio picked the right choice.
"I hope you make it safe, good friend. Wherever you end up with."
Then, like he had been his entire life, he took out his santarguo, kissed the steel, and ran out into the smoke for one final ride as a Byzant...
****
Isabella returned home from her trip to see Crystal Metropolis changing again. Since Hector made his move on the ATM planets, Crystal Metropolis was left under the protection of the Strator Circle. Even though the strators did not trust him, they accepted his offer to look after the planet while he was away.
It was the first place Isabella went to into her return. She knew that the strators hated Hector more than she did and would agree with anything she wanted.
What she wanted more than anything was kill King Hector Bozario Santos.
She talked to the speaker for the Strator Circle: Menelaus, a man who for years tried to persuade the strators to stand up for the people against the king. The problem was that Hector was as vicious as ever. Plus, they had their reputations and status to think about.
This time, Hector had gone too far. He put the planet in a state of bewilderment and were afraid they were going to be targeted more than ever for assassination.
Isabella and Menelaus talked in the floating Nero Palace over dinner and wine. After dinner, they went outside to the bow on his long promenade and talked in secret.
“We have the chance to take out Hector,” she said. “But we have to be careful if we do it. He’s in the Hallow Points, am I right?”
“So what?" Menelaus said. "He’s more ruthless now than ever before. He has Democrat Guards and Barca Indus watching over this place.”
“It’s no different from how the other Santos kings did it. That’s his problem... and his weakness. He wants to be like them so badly.”
Isabella touched his shoulder. “If we plan this right, Hector could be off the throne within the new year.”
“And where do I fit in all this?”
“All you have to do is persuade the other strators to keep face. In return... I’ll give you the throne.”
Menelaus touched her shoulders, stopping her. “Wait a minute! You’re going to give me the Santos throne?”
“Or whoever strator wants it. I don’t care who gets it. As long as Hector gets what’s coming to him. It’ll be what my father wanted.”
“Why you’re doing this when you could have done something about this a long time ago?”
Isabella shrugged. “Well, I was scared then. I’m not now.”
Menelaus touched Isabella’s face. “You should have taken over. You and your brother. Things would have been more peaceful.”
“I’m not a ruler,” Isabella said softly, blushing a little at the response. “I’m just a woman that finally stopped being a little girl.”
The two shake hands. The deal was made.
"To the fall of Hector," Menelaus said.
****
The entire plan was almost complete. One more element Isabella wanted to bring into the plan.
She met him in her bedroom, sitting with a table between them and some dice.
When the door opened and saw who it was, she knew that it was going to be perfect. This man knew from her eyes that Isabella was different and was about family business.
After years of being in a silhouette trying to escape her family’s dealings, Luciana Isabella Santos had taken her place as a force in the Santos family...
****
Hector returned to Crystal Metropolis victorious. The Hallow Points was the first major victory of his reign. It was a vicious scrimmage, but the results justified the effort.
Finally, he had something to gloat about.
In the Santos Palace, he smiled more and more with no sign of rage coming from him a
nytime soon. He had shown the ATM that he was a master of his own fate. The ATM had no choice but to acknowledge his reign as legitimate.
Isabella had come to him and showed her support, even though they had barely talked to one another, with praises and kisses. Hector passed her by making no vicious comment about her character and the like.
In fact, for the first night in several years of their marriage, they made love.
Isabella set him up for the first half. Hector felt like a god.
INIQUITOUS DOMINION: The Galactic Classic Page 46
