The Consumption
GALAXY ANDROMEDA REGION 9C SPACE GALAXY DATE
4-20-57188
The utter silence was overwhelming. Nothing. Not a star, a planet, a moon, anything for trillions of miles. Total isolation. It would drive any lone man insane. And yet, Captain Shaneir was sitting in his vessel, The Glide, as he called it, the only crewmen aboard, captain, and felt at home. Or at least he called himself captain. There aren’t really any rules saying a 10 by 4 meter pleasure vessel without any repairs in thirty years of wandering space couldn’t have a captain.
The sense of being cut off from the universe wasn’t scary to Hugo Shaneir. It made him feel like the only person who existed or mattered. Like there weren’t billions upon trillions of galaxies out there filled with billions upon trillions of planets, with unique ecosystems and life forms. He was the universe.
And at the peak of his moment, his relaxed grin covering his face shattered to billions of atoms as a Belatrin SpeedCruiser sped across the window looking out to the vacuum of what used to be his own personal nothingness. A millisecond later, a 9C patrol ship raced after it, firing electron torpedoes. Electron. The most destructive ship weapon in Andromeda. Belatrin Speed Cruisers had been banned from the Belatri System and all of region 9C of the galaxy Andromeda for that matter. They exceeded what could be referred to as the galactic speed limit. Their thruster engines were too fast for safety, and thieves used them to escape from being caught. Their warp, however, was only class 3. This must be a classic cop chase.
The elegant ships sped around Shaneir’s radar, until the SpeedCruiser picked up engine power and made a sharp turn around The Glide. In one final hope to catch the outlaw, the patrol ship fired an electron torpedo right at the turning ship. It sped off into warp as the torpedo slammed into the outer control turbines of The Glide. The control panel erupted into an explosion, throwing a screaming Captain Shaneir across the ship.
GALAXY ANDROMEDA REGION 4A MILIS SYSTEM
PLANET MILODE II MINING FACILITY GALAXY DATE
2-11-57219
Finally, he reached a small shack that materialized three feet in front of him, the furthest out he could see through the merciless storm. There was a hatch that slid to the right revealing the big pupils of a pair of huge, pointy milan eyes. A trio, rather. But the one on the giant droopy milan chin couldn’t be seen at the moment.
“State your name, race, position, and intent.” spoke the deep matter-of-fact voice of the native race in this system.
“Me… no great English. Apology.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know English? The homo sapian sapien sapiens taught everyone in Andromeda centuries ago when they conquered and named this galaxy.
“Homi…sape…eh…?”
“Homo sapien sapien sapien? The class 23 life form of what they call the Milky Way? They rule this area of the universe. Quite a few galaxies.You oughta know that to survive here, kid. Their pretty darn nice overlords if you ask me, but ya gotta respect ‘em. I respect any organism that huge and advanced. But I’m done enlightening you, buddy.” finished the Milan, seeing the clear confusion smeared on the face of the silver alien out in the storm. “I asked you questions.”
“I.. Lucas Shaneir, sir. I a Ceno, a… rogue, you say? Father dead two decades past. Me intent shelter.”
“Ceno, huh? That explains how you’re not dead yet out in the storm wearing that, yet. But I understand you folks can’t live too long in the cold. You’ve come a long way if you’re Ceni. Cenos are from 9C, aren’t they? And… how don’t you know ‘bout our rulers if your from Andromeda? You’re one strange kid.”
“Me was three. Got taken. No know who. Came back fuzzy memory thirty after years. All I know… memory of three years, explains mine English. Me know basics about galaxy. Don’t know how. Father dead years now. Came back three days past on Milode, is it?”
“Milode II.” said the bewildered guard. “Amazing story, I gotta admit. You can stay here long as you want, as long as you’re minin’.”
“Yes, sir. Thank, sir.” said Lucas, excited.
The guard laughed as he opened the door to a stone staircase. “And I’ll see to it you learn English, buddy. Go downstairs and tell the guard Vart sent you to mine. ‘Til next time… Lucas, was it? Oh, and sorry about you father.”
GALAXY ANDROMEDA REGION 9B BELATRI SYSTEM
PLANET BELANON GALAXY DATE 10-3-57172
“Sweetie, this is a huge planet that is very successful. I’m sure we can find a school for you.” said her father.
“No, Dad. No, besides, the-the other kids would make fun of me. You… you can’t let them do that dad. No. I need to get back to work now, dad. I need to finish designing my class 16 warp engine.”
“You’re only five years old! You need to go to school. Don’t argue with your father. And you have to know that I would never let anyone make fun of you for being autistic. Just tell anyone who tries that it is a disorder that originated from Earth, and they can mess with the humans if they have any issues with it.” His expression changed as he finished. “Mom would want me to protect you, like she did. I won’t let her down. I’m practically the only one you could ever openly talk to, and now I’m all that… you’re all that I have.”
The girl ignored her father.
“Lifola?”
“Dad, I… dad, I told you I can cure my autism. You need to give me a static energizer and an ear chip. Dad, I need them. Dad.”
“I told you, we don’t have that kind of money. Nor the money for a non-Belatrin school. Please. I’m trying to help you for mother.”
Lifola saved the hologram board to her holochip and it got absorbed by the silver machine as she ran outside without a word.
“Lifola, come back! Please, honey!” He ran after her, holding back a single tear. When he got to the doorway, the metal barricade slid back into place with a click. He scanned his hand and he heard a low beep sound. The door didn’t budge. “Lifola did you hack the security door? Lifola, let me out!”
After a minute, it finally opened and he ran outside to the busy landship lanes and skyscrapers of Inteliss City blocking his view. “Lifola!” he called. “Lifola, come back! Where are you?”
The stars were barely visible, and it seemed to finally be the end of the day. It must be 371 o’ clock, as the humans call it. 680 Earth hours in a Belanon day… it was past Lifola’s bedtime.
With a sick feeling in his stomach, he bolted toward the starship base.
GALAXY ANDROMEDA REGION 4A MILIS SYSTEM
PLANET MILODE II MINING COLONY GALAXY DATE
8-20-57225
The dank brown caves of Mine 498 stared at Lucas as if to scold him, as he slipped the emerald into his pocket. For 200 years, Milode II was a thriving mining facility, exporting uranium, silver, coal, iron, and midanditite, used for Milan ships and starcrafts, with willing people given a home here for the price of working in the mines, or you could be sentenced to Milode II for no pay. But in all this time, they had never found the Pah-Meintah, a rare jewel that is said to be the skeleton of the jewel’s namesake creature from ancient times that dug through cave walls. There was one said to be here, but nobody has found it in the two centuries the miners have looked for it. Until now.
If anyone found the Pah-Meintah, they were suppose to turn it in to the Lead Quarters at the north side of the facility, for a 300 billone money reward. 1 billone is worth 1,000 millones, 1 millone is worth 1,000 thosones, and 1 thosone is worth 1,000 singones, the smallest unit of currency. With 20 singones you could buy a lollipop, and with 1.5 millones you could buy a very nice car. But Lucas knew that a Pah-Meintah would be worth at least 4.5 trillones, one step higher than billones. This was his chance. His chance to start his life. For as far as he was concerned, he was only nine years old.
He had learned a lot in his years living here. About humans, the galaxy, and other races, from the other various creatures who mined here as well. But now it was time to start a life of his own. He remembered his father telling him of his journeys in space when he was a child. He didn’t understand all of the words, but it seemed like his father wandered around space visiting different planets, buying things from one and selling them to another to make a living. It sounded like a pretty enjoyable life. It’s what Kiinash wanted. He slipped the Pah-Meintah into his pack and walked down the cave.
“Hey, Lucas. Where’re ya goin’?” Onik’s voice distracted Lucas from his thoughts. Onik was a neeraben from the Benneri system in region B4. A pudgy, hairless race, much like a green glob of moving goo, with a face.
“I’m taking my… meal break.”
“At 2:00 AM? It’s probably not even that light out yet… don’t you usually eat lunch at 4:30? Noon, like most people?”
“Do you have a problem?” Lucas responded, raising his tone and making himself as big as possible looking up at the 8 foot tall Onik.
“Huh, hah, hah!” the neeraben chuckled. “I’m not some kind of animal, you Ceno!”
Ignoring Onik and the suspicious alien glares looming around him, Kiinash hurried passed the dull dirt caverns of Mine 498 to his quarters in sector 4.9-B. He checked out of the work area by the guard, who didn’t go without questioning Lucas’ “lack of ore or minerals”.
“I’ve had no luck today yet, sir. Apologies.”
“Well you better get more lucky after your 2 AM break to ‘eat your lunch’ in you quarters, instead of the meal room. That is, if you value your place here.” Responded the guard with the usual unreadable expression of a milan, as he let Lucas through the iron work gates. As he stepped by, the guard walked past him, brushing up against his shoulder. He must be leaving his shift. Kiinash told himself.
Lucas dumped his leather pack onto his wooden plank of a bed in his small bedroom of his quarters. A 498 map, an iron pickaxe and chisel, a change of leather robes, and… nothing else. No Pah-Meintah. Nothing.
Happiness drained from his body replacing it with a dreary chill through his bones. He felt empty. Naked. He checked all the pockets of the burlap pouch that he never used. He checked again. Nothing.
Again.
He had no jewel. He sat there on his bed, in absolute silence except for his beating heart, speeding like it was chasing something, then slowing down until he could feel absolutely nothing.
The teardrop hitting his worn jeans woke him up. He could think again. Thoughts racing through his mind, he realized the sole answer. The guard brushing against his right shoulder. He saw it this time. What happened. He clearly saw the image of the milan pick pocketing his pack as he walked by, bright as day.
Without a single thought or image in his mind, Lucas burst through his metal door into the corridor of 4.9-B, just as a different guard turned the corner into the hallway.
“That’s him!” The command revealed three other guards. They were coming at him from all sides. Lucas ran for the first guard, fury controlling face and his mind.
Lunging at his the wrinkly guard’s face, Lucas kicked the spear being thrust at him out of the milan’s hand as he punched the greasy face. Knocked back, the guard hit another milan behind him. Without thinking what he was doing, Lucas took the spear and impaled the guard before he could get up. Whipping around, Lucas hit the guard charging at him with the butt of his spear, knocking him out immediately. His eyes fixed to the bulge in the first guard’s pocket. Taking the Pah-Meintah out of it’s hiding, Lucas ran for the rail lift at the end of the metal corridor.
Before he reached the end, the red alarms sounded with their stunning beeps, and the rattle of guns and feet echoed through the sector. Reaching the end, he saw the two lit up blue energy rails going vertically straight up through a passage to the surface. He put one foot on each, and was shot up the lift just as a squad of guards turned the corner.
Lucas looked down at the laser bullets colliding with the steel wall where he was less than a second ago. One hit the right energy rail, and it lost its glow as well as its pull. His left leg was shot up, and the unbalance flipped him over, heading head first for the ground.
Racing for his life, Lucas grabbed the emergency ladder on the opposite side of the wall and his legs fell down to below his head where they should be with a jolt. The spear fell to the floor with a ringing clang. He hung from the lowest rung, feet dangling right below the wall showing in the corridor. A bullet skimmed his shoe as he threw himself up the ladder.
Emerging at the surface room, Lucas saw Vart, the surface guard he met six years ago, the day he awoke on Milode II.
“What’s going on, here?!” he yelled with more anger than confusion. Then his eyes met Lucas’s. “Lucas? …Why…”
“I’m sorry.” whispered Kiinash, as he took a laser sword from the wall and stabbed it through Vart’s chest. Vart coughed as he staggered backwards against the wall, and slid down with the sword through his chest.
Grabbing Vart’s laser rifle, Kiinash climbed through the hatch to the light summer blizzards of Milode II. The snowy mountains stretched out as far as his sight reached, and the strong whistling winds blew the hatch closed with a crash.
The shock made Kiinash involuntarily turn around. Behind the hatch was a small starship field with two guards who heard the crash as well. They were startled for a few seconds, until one started to run ahead, only to meat Lucas’ laser rifle in his first step. The other guard shot his pistol just as the ceno ducked for his life. Another bullet was sent flying through the air, then another hit the hatch with the cling of metal. A normal bullet. He hadn’t seen those in a while.
That was three. He heard the normal gunshot again. 4. He started running. 5. 6. That meant the guard was out of ammo. Running up to the starship field, Lucas saw the guard drop his revolver and put his hands up.
“Put ‘em down, milan. You’re gonna show me how to fly a starship.”
Vart coughed and sputtered out a droplet of blood onto his uniform as two guards came up the rail lift. He couldn’t believe the words that came out of his dying mouth next.
“Good… luck…. Lucas…” he got out, as the guards ran toward him. As he felt the laser sword being pulled out of him, his eyes closed and the universe faded around him.
GALAXY ANDROMEDA REGION 1C PLANETARY SHIP OF
THE KIIREN SCIENTIFIC BAY GALAXY DATE
8-20-57225
“I’m 53 years old! I have at least 100 more years of my life! You can’t kill me here, now!” Lifola screamed.
“CRSSSHGRNNN-click-BENNNNGRRRRIIIIIILL!” was the response of the black, deformed-looking alien standing above the metal block where Lifola lay.
“click-KKKKKIIIISHHHHH-click-click. Life form designation found. Language: English. Race: Human. Homo Sapien Sapien. Class: 23. Home planet: Earth 4. How can it be class 23, Vishjej? Look at it!” The alien’s partner to its left stared at him.
“Checking history database of human. click-click-click-click. They conquered over 7,000 races in their history. This must be one of them. It adapted many human-like qualities. Scanning appearance. Race: Belatrin. Class: 9. Home planet: Belanon.” Responded the other.
Another alien walked into the dimly lit surgical-looking room. This one looked older; more fleshy and more of a pitch black leathery skin. At the top of its bald head was what looked like inflated skin, making a seal or design of some sort that the others did not have.
“GESSHHHHHHHSHHHIM. BLEGGAKKK?” it questioned.
“Yes, English, Commander Feaden.” replied Vishjej. “It comes from a land called England from Earth 1 in the Milky Way, back when different languages were spoken within planets. I remember those days, Commander. I was just a boy. Am I imitating a weak human well? SHEE HEH HEH!” the mechanical laughter of Lifola’s captors was eerie to her; their laugh, and the way they calculated information sounded like androids, except they looked like flesh and blood, however strange and distant this kind of it was.
“So, how about you then, aliens? What are you?” she asked.
“Accessing life form information. Language: Kiiren. Race: Kiiren. Class: Unknown. Home planet: NONE.” The way that the first Kiiren had to access his own information reached out to Lifola in some way that haunted her.
“So… what do you want with me?” she asked hesitantly, not wanting to hear the answer. The first alien turned to Feaden.
“Feaden, I have the same question as the beletrin. What of this one? It is a different race than the others, do you have different plans? Or… is it being consumed as well?” Lifola’s eyes tripled in size.
“Con-CONSUMED?! YOUR GONNA EAT ME?” Lifola writhed in her cold iron chains. “YOU ANIMALS!” At this point she was screaming louder than she ever knew possible. “HEEELLLP! HELP ME, SOMEBODY!!”
“Why is it being loud, commander? Is it resisting?”
“I believe so, Voinar. And as of what we’ll do with it… I do not know. That’s for The Core to decide. It has given me no further orders as of now.” With that, Commander Feaden walked through the doorway, and through the energy field barricading it, with a short buzzing sound.
“Well in that case,” said Voinar, “Goodbye for now, beletrin. Come, Vishjej.” With the smirk of Vishjej as he turned for the doorway with Voinar, Lifola was alone.
“No… No you can’t do this, WAIT! WAIT! No… please…” The gentle sobs of the beletrin were all that could be heard in the room, and after a few minutes they died down. At this point Lifola took in her surroundings; a small dark room with some sort of scanner device hovering over her head. Occasionally it made a low, hushed, long beep. There were also strange silver beams on the ceiling with dark red orbs attached at different points, giving off a faint glow. An arched doorway with the energy field taunting her inability to escape, windows on the right wall, also with energy fields, looking out to space, some small tables with lab equipment, and a small stand to the right of the big block where she lay, which had a purple rack containing some papers, needles, and…. a laser knife. This was it… this was escape.
Lifola stretched her light blue arm out as far as she possibly could, but it wasn’t enough. Trying again, she jolted her arm to the side and stretched out as far as possible. Making her seven fingers as lengthy as possible, she skimmed the rack. One last time, she jolted her arm to the point where the shackles felt like they were shrinking and squeezing the already irritated skin hiding underneath the cuffs. Her sixth and longest finger hit the rack, causing it to fall backwards slamming into the ground… the laser knife with it.
Breathing heavily and clutching her pained wrist, all Lifola could do was wait.
GALAXY ANDROMEDA REGION 4A SPACE
MILIS SYSTEM GALAXY DATE 8-20-57225
“Captain. Captain Shaneir. Not Lucas Shaneir. You address me how I tell you. Now, what is it, Officer Mendu?”
“C… Captain, if you don’t mind me saying so… I have a family. My children wait for me every week when I get back to Milode III. Surely you aren’t… cruel enough to take me away from my loved ones.” Mendu said the last words with hesitation, wondering if they would be the last to come out of his mouth. But Kiinash didn’t flinch. He kept staring out the window into the empty void of space, with an expression like he was trying to keep away his troubles with a weak smile.
“Captain?”
“Yes, yes… sorry. You can go back to Milode III. I… hadn’t realized what I was doing. I kidnapped you… killed three innocent men. What have I become? Stupid jewel…” Mendu’s eyes opened wider at the last word, but he didn’t move. “Thank you for teaching me to fly a basic starship. You can take the shuttlecraft home.” After Lucas finished, Mendu turned for the Pod Bay. “Oh. And Mendu…” Mendu turned. “I’m sorry.” It was only then that Lucas looked away from the window at Mendu.
The officer nodded and walked out the door.
At the sound of the shuttlecraft taking off, Lucas pounded the chair with his small silver fist.
“NO!” he cried. He was a criminal. The Pah-Meintah had stolen his good heart. He was corrupt. Full of rage, Lucas took the jewel from his pocket and threw it across the control room. When it collided with the window, a green beam of light was send flying across the room, nearly taking off Lucas’ head. The small beam slowed down and fizzled away leaving a trail of black in its path.
Frozen in place, Lucas looked at the blackness. There was nothing there. He managed to move to the side, discovering that it was just a streak of nothingness in the middle of the room. Nothing… a void… space. His heart pounded in excitement until a screeching buzzer interrupted him. The beeping alarm flashed red lights across the ship. Too many alarms for one day. An automated voice told him his death sentence.
‘Warning: hull breech in wall- … error. No wall breeched. Warning: breech. Warning: breech.’ Of course no wall was breeched. Lucas had just discovered some kind of new technology. There was a hole in the middle of the ship. But that’s impossible! There’s no hole… the Pah-Meintah… created space. Suddenly Kiinash felt an emptiness in his lungs. New technology or not, there was a breech.
Lucas ran to the door as the emptiness swelled into a giant bubble in his body. He opened the door, sealing it behind him tightly, gasping for breath.
‘Expelling breeched room.’ said the automated voice, as Lucas heard the sound of dozens of latches being released. The control room slowly drifted away into space, leaving Lucas in a small ship without a control room… or a Pah-Meintah. He reached for the door, but it was automatically sealed from the breech. He took the laser rifle from his belt and blew off the glass with one shot. The swelling emptiness returned, as Lucas was sucked out into space. His floating body reached for the drifting control room, already at least 10 feet away. The freezing temperature of space was immediately getting through his Ceno cold-resistant skin. He was dying. Suffocating, freezing, and in the middle of space.
GALAXY ANDROMEDA REGION 1C PLANETARY SHIP OF
THE KIIREN SCIENTIFIC BAY GALAXY DATE
8-20-57225
Negshar walked down the dimly lit corridor by blue lights, feeling especially hungry. The last Feeding was over three months ago, and everyone wanted more. But Negshar was too busy working on the laser tank reinforcements in his lab chamber to feed then. Now he was dying for something. Even a little bit would be fine.
He entered through the energy field to room 2784320-N of the Scientific Bay, where Lifola lay crying softly on the metal block.
“English, I hear? Yes, yes. So… you are the next one to fuel the Feeding? They are still preparing you; only nine of the chips have been implanted. I can’t wait that long. I need to feed now.
“NO! You can’t eat me! Please!” screamed Lifola.
“Shhh!” hissed the Kiiren. “Nobody can know I’m here, we’re not allowed to consume anything if it isn’t purified by a life form yet. We can get Disease, and spread it to everyone else. But I’m willing to take the risk, because I might die soon if I don’t…”
Lifola was about to scream again, but she couldn’t make any noise because her mind was fixed on what Negshar did next. He walked over the right wall and stuck his head out the window through the energy field… into space. A blinding yellow light appeared as he breathed in, his body growing slightly bigger, and holes seemed to open up on his head. Lifola looked away as a roar erupted, then a short high-pitched frequency, then nothing.
She looked back and Negshar looked normal again. Outside the window was a black blotch in the middle of space. Even more pitch black than space, and a strange mist was swirling around it. It was like a wall in the middle of space, because no stars could be seen behind it, but it was nothing. A small, few square feet big void of nothingness. Right in the middle of the greatest nothingness Lifola had ever known. More empty than space. They eat… no, consume space.
“Aaaaaaa. Refreshing. I’m so fortunate to live in this sector of the Scientific Bay, out of the whole one thirty-second of a light year long ship.” The mechanical laughter barely reached Lifola’s wounded ears, not only because the intense sound hurt them greatly, but because her mind was fixed on what had just happened. “That should hold me up for a while. Goodbye, Beletrin.” As Negshar turned for the door, Lifola could tell that he was already weak from… whatever Disease is. He stumbled and tripped over the corner of the metal block, bumping into the stand with the purple rack, knocking it over.
The laser knife fell onto the block, and Lifola grabbed it in mid-air, cutting her hand. The long cut already started to make the now pale skin around it swell, so Lifola took it by the handle with just her fingertips. She sliced the shackle on her hand, then reached over to free the other hand. Sitting up, she cut free both legs, switching the laser knife to her left hand before Negshar could stand up. She stabbed the top of his head, causing him to fall back down, and threw his body through the energy field. It deactivated for a few seconds when it sensed a Kiiren body, just like with Voinar, Vishjej, and Feaden earlier. With just enough time, Lifola dashed through the arch doorway into the hallway outside.
One thirty-second of a light year. I have a lot to search if I want to find an escape. With the one thought of doubt, Lifola started her seemingly hopeless search.
GALAXY ANDROMEDA REGION 4A SPACE
MILIS SYSTEM GALAXY DATE 8-20-57225
Mendu stared out the back window. He might as well enjoy the passing space in the long shuttlecraft ride home. He hadn’t piloted many shuttlecrafts before; he generally disliked spacecrafts this slow. But what he saw was not expected. Lucas’ starship, split in two… with a dot in the middle. Lucas. He was an outlaw. A murderer. He didn’t deserve help. But he had become all that in the past few hours. He had only been with him once prior to the day, but he knew he wasn’t a bad person. But why would I help a criminal? Mendu’s thoughts were helpless; some strange feeling inside of him disagreed with it all. It was like some sort of pull that made his mind gravitate toward Lucas.
Through all this thinking, Mendu hadn’t realized that the red lever was turned. That he turned the red lever. He was going in reverse.
‘Energy field activated.’ the shuttlecraft told Mendu as the doors opened to space, with only the energy field between him and the most absolute nothingness he could comprehend. Putting on the emergency space suit gloves from the glass case in the back of the shuttlecraft, he reached out and grasped the leg of Lucas’ floating body, appearing lifeless.
As he pulled Lucas through the doors, the shuttlecraft’s artificial gravity instantly pulled the body down. Mendu dropped to the ground with a sigh, the white arm glove against his face. What am I doing? he thought, staring at the outlaw Ceno lying probably dead in Mendu’s least favorite kind of ship that he was piloting, thousands of miles from the planet he was suppose to be at work on.
After a few minutes Mendu pressed a button on a wall keypad, shutting the doors, put the gloves back, then sat at the control board ready to go back to Milode II. Just then, he heard a fast inhale through the nose from behind him as Lucas’ blue eyes burst wide open.
“Thank you.” he spoke immediately. “And sorry.” Immediately, without even looking like he was unconscious a few seconds ago, Lucas darted for the case and put on the space suit with amazing speed, running to the keypad, opening the doors, and ran to the energy field, jumping out into space. Something lit up on the communications panel on his neck, and he heard Mendu in his helmet.
“I don’t know why I saved you. How did you survive that long in space, anyway?” Lucas held down a button on the panel.
“Cenos are fairly resistant to space. We can pass out as easily as Milans and most other species, but we don’t die after that for a while.”
“Lucky bastards.” Mendu chuckled. “Why are you even trying to get in to the control room? My radar shows a bree… some kind of breech… It wouldn’t be worth anything.” as he said that, Lucas finally reached the control room. Breaking the glass with his rifle, he laughed at what Mendu said. Entering the control room, Kiinash took the precious Pah-Meintah from the corner of the room, quickly and excitedly returning to the shuttlecraft; but not without a last glance at the chunk of space in the middle of the ship.
“This wouldn’t be worth anything?” Lucas questioned once he was back inside the shuttlecraft. Mendu eyed it with a gaping mouth.
“That isn’t…” the Milan’s smile finished his sentence, the lips bringing the oily bubbled skin of his chins higher up, and Lucas joined his expression of glee. “I’ll never speak of your crimes to anyone, and I’ll see to it no more people find out about it if we share the profits. 50%.” Mendu looked serious now. Milans are always serious when it comes to money.
“20%.” Lucas bartered.
“30. That’s all.”
“Deal.” Lucas concluded, with a slightly more comforting grin.
“I’ll be a rich man with any amount of it, anyway. Heh, heh. Thanks. So what of it’s selling?”
“One of my friends from the mine knows a place.” said Lucas. And within ten seconds, the two members of the shuttlecraft’s crew were on course to their next destination. Wealth.
GALAXY ANDROMEDA REGION 5A MEDA-EARTH HUMAN
OUTPOST PLANET RUSSIO SYSTEM GALAXY DATE
8-20-57225
As Eddie entered the large decorative marble room, he was disgusted at all the statues of alien bodies. The different appearances and varied features of one man to another in these foreign species was revolting to him. Eddie didn’t understand why he and the rest of the Blaubes in the galaxy were the only species that were small, moving, several-inch-tall green blobs, why humans thought it was funny to name them Blaubes as comedy relief to their lives without considering that they were a very developed class 7 life form, and lastly, why those stone stautes didn’t have at least stone tunics on to cover their hideous, alien stone body parts.
“Edward Johns?” the Russian called in an orderly voice to the group of varied species standing aside the large oval table in the middle of the room. Russians are a race discovered by humans on an expedition from a country called Russia. They strongly resembled humans in an earlier evolution, and most likely evolved the same ways. They are appropriately now the head race of the two-planet human outpost in the star system Russio, home to the primary communications center of humans, and a few homo sapien sapien sapiens themselves, although they are rarely seen. These two planets, Andrearth and Meda-Earth, are the primary spots for interacting with the rulers of this galaxy, and therefore are the head planets of Andromeda. Connected by an enclosed series of pipes with pods transporting people to and from each planet, Andrearth is in charge of this galaxy’s space and regions, while Meda-Earth decides law and houses several homo sapien sapien sapiens.
Eddie the Blaube hopped over to the long, granite table in the center of the room and took a seat. Each chair was customized for the race that occupied it, though most were the same. Eddie’s, however was a silver stool on rails that move up and down. The stool was on the floor for Eddie’s arrival, and when he jumped onto it he triggered a mechanism which made it rise up so he could see the rest of the table. Already seated there was a Fereese, Bennerot, Ceno, Russian, Seshkalore, Belatrin, and now a Blaube. There were twenty-four empty seats left, and it took a while for all the chairs of the Galactic Council to fill up.
Once every race was called and went through a security check, the meeting began.
“I am Akim of New Moscow. I speak as head of the newly formed Galactic Council, and I am holding this meeting to bring a disturbing matter into the eyes of all of Andromeda.” The Russian at the head of the table spoke with great authority, wiping away Eddie’s thoughts of his meal earlier that day, because something important seemed to be happening. “Some of you are presidents of you country or rulers of your planet, some of you are warriors, astronauts, or civilians. You each have been picked for a reason. Our Eldivian advisor at the Galactic House of New Moscow has forseen the future of all you who doubt your authority to be a member of the Galactic Council. Do not question an Eldivian. Or the G.H.N.M for that matter.”
“You all have your doubts, I know.” sounded the smooth, slow voice of the hooded Eldivian sitting at the opposite end of the table. She was dressed in traditional Eldivian garb, with a brightly colored and vividly designed tunic displaying the gold, red, and purple symbolizing their superstitious, mystical race. “But I know from my meditation what all of you bring to the Galactic Council. While you are all free to get up and leave right now, I urge you to stay with us and continue with your new-” A Hallok stood up in the middle of the advisor’s sentence, heading for the grand archway out of the Council Room. “...high paying job.” finished the advisor slowly with a pause after each word, eyeing the big, green, fat body of the Hallok, as he stood in his place for a few seconds, before turning around with a grunt and heading back to his seat. Damn Halloks. thought a silently chuckling Eddie, as eyes darted around the room to see if others would follow.
“Well. I’m glad we all are still here.” said Akim, with the slightest smile that faded when his next words fell into the silent room. “But the time of Izonn’s Prophecy is here. The galaxy is facing it’s final days.”
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