Klonor
28-05-2005, 06:17
"Sir, please stay calm. We have everything under control."
"Control? Control? Are you insane? What do you have control of?"
"Sir, please, control yourself. We can handle this. But you must stay in this room."
"Why? What makes this room better than any other room to die in?"
The Grand Duke Solomon Klonor was nearly hysterical, he was panicing and it was obvious to everybody around him. That alone, more than the extreme circumstances they found themselves in, was enough to instill terror in the hearts of everybody else present. For the Duke, a man who had actually been killed more times than they could count, to lose control was something they simply couldn't deal with. Fortunately, many of them didn't have to deal with it for long.
"Sir, please, stay calm and stay here. We'll take care of everything."
With a quick salute the seven Dealers present in the room, enough military might to conquer a small planet, turned and exited the Grand Hall of the Deneb Vicegral Palace and began to make their way towards the Palace's exterior defences. As they passed through the empty rooms of the Palace, ensuring that the grand mansion had been emptied of everybody they could clear out, they began to slow down and fan out, obviously expecting trouble the closer they got to the exterior. When they were a bare few rooms from the main exit they froze completely, all pulling concealed weapons from their loose clothing and visibly preparing themselves for death before proceeding to the exit. They were not disappointed.
The exit hall was littered with corpses, the floor literally covered with a carpet of tattered flesh, and only a bare few soldiers were still standing and well enough to man the guns that insured nothing would get into the Palace. Of the dozen men still alive, even the the best of them seemed severely injured and barely able to stand. Towards the front of the baricades one of the survivors stood up and turned to the newly arrived Dealers. He was a mountain of a man, nearly seven feet tall and a veritable wall of muscle, and seemed to be the only one without a nearly fatal wound. He saluted the new arrivals, but quickly turned back to his weaponry.
Status.
Teams 09 and 13 have been eliminated. We have lost contact with 05 and 02 has been halved. Still no sighting of the enemy. No communication.
Off-planet teams?
Gone.
The new arrivals nodded, then four began moving again and quickly exited the Palace while the other three stayed to lend their support to the wounded Marines and single Dealer that had, as yet, managed to keep the attackers out of the Palace and away from the Duke. With a small nod to the other soldiers the new Dealers began to focus their minds and glow with an inner energy, readying themselves for the next onslaught as the four others began to search the surrounding city for the unseen attackers. This time, they were disappointed.
The surrounding city, a jungle of concrete and steel, stretched for miles in every direction and was home to millions of Klonor citizens, both Human and otherwise. Except for its sheer size, one of the largest in the Association, it was indistinguishable from any of a hundred other cities strung throughout the Universe. That was the problem. It was to be expected that a city under siege, with its military being devastated by an unknown force that swept aside the most powerful of defences as easily as brushing aside a strand of silk strung before them, would be filled with frenzied mobs fleeing for the hills and massive destruction all around. It was not expected, however, that there would be no visible damage to the buildings and that the populace would be going about their business as if nothing had happened. To their knowledge, nothing had happened. They saw none of what had happened. It was the same everywhere in the Association.
It had begun a bare week ago, during the close of one of the smaller Civil Wars in Klonors history, with the disappearance of Dealer Team 08 after their capture of General Lions. Recovery craft dispatched after their failure to contact the Gamma Draconis base found only four corpses in eight pieces, a devastated wasteland scarred by the Dealers attempts at defence, and Lions nearly dead from starvation within the cage the Dealers had strapped him in. He had long since gone mad and shed no light on what had happened, nor did the remains of the Dealers. Within an hour three more teams had dropped off the scope without warning. Only one Dealer had managed to survive long enough to get a message to Supreme General Richard Ihm at Gamma Draconis, and then it had only been two short words: The Jai.
After that Dealers began dropping left and right, averaging out to one a day, and all surviving members had been called back to Deneb to ensure the Dukes survival. The fact that the attacks were only on the personal guards of the Duke almost guaranteed that he was the ultimate target. But still nothing made sense, since the attacks had been on the Dealers and the Dealers alone, the rest of the Klonor Space Corps left untouched except when they interfered. Thus, there were no massive space battles, no cities levelled from orbit, only individual men dying here and there across a span of several thousand light-years. The populace was easily kept ignorant.
But, whether the people knew about it or not, the Dealers were still being systematically wiped out, along with any standard Klonor Marines that were unlucky enough to be with them when they were eliminated. Eventually they had all but ceased to exist, a bare four Duty Teams and the Denebian Guard still left, and now it seems even the four Duty Teams were no more. The Denebian Guard were all that were left and, supported by the entire might of the Klonor Space Corps, they were still determined to keep the attackers out of the Vicegral Palace and way from the Duke. Unfortunately, determined or not, they failed miserably.
The four Dealers searching the city fell within minutes of leaving the Palace, caught unawares by the unseen enemy and falling to pieces, literally, in plain sight of the populace with no visible cause to anybody who witnessed it. The four left at the Palace entrance, manning the heavy weapons emplacements and supported by several thousand freshly arrived troops from the orbiting Destroyers, lasted longer. When the first Dealer fell, sliced neatly without the others even aware of a threat, they simply began to fire indiscriminately out from the Palace. The Dealers unleashed a flood of energy that would have obliterated any living thing caught in its path, the soldiers filled the air with an uncountable amount of bullets and an unmeasurable amount of energy from their less sophisticated but equally deadly weaponry. A second Dealer fell, this time accompanied by several dozen Marines as well, and the two surviving Dealers halted their attack. As the Marines continued, even escalated, their firing the two Dealers began to form a solid wall of energy in front of them, seeking to block anything from entering into the Palace. The wall flashed and seethed, battered by the unseen forces. The Dealers gritted their teeth and forced more of themselves into the wall, enforcing it and deflecting the next three attacks. It seemed as if they had succeeded, that they had managed to finally halt the mysterious enemies, when a single powerful blow shattered the wall and cast energy across those behind it. Many of the Marines screamed as they were scarred by the heat, but more simply tightened their fingers on their triggers and kept trying to hit what they couldn't see. Seconds later the two Dealers fell, and mere moments after that the guns of the Marines fell silent as the thousands of soldiers slumped to the ground amid a few gasps and the occasional sob before all was silent.
The Duke, watching on one of the many video monitors in the Grand Hall, stifled a sob and turned the the few men with him.
"That's it then. It's over."
His voice was flat, lifeless, dead. It was as if a corpse was speaking from the Dukes body.
"But.....sir?"
"What more can we do?"
Not even when Salm had had the Duke within his grasp had he actually given up, not when the still unknown secret society had destroyed his mind from the inside did he despair, not when he'd awoken from a hundred year slumber to find nearly the entire Universe changed had he lost hope. But now, with the entire Dealer force obliterated effortlessly and a seemingly unstoppable force now coming for him, he began to tread down those often avoided paths. It crossed his mind that an enemy this powerful, this resourceful, this intelligent, might have the technology to not only kill him, but to make him stay dead. That this time he might not be coming back, that this time he wouldn't wake up from his slumber and return to what was rightfully his. For what felt like the first time in his life, he thought he faced the end of his life. However, instead of the peace and serenity that the cheesy novels always said people felt when their time was up, he felt nothing but dread, regret, and fear.
The door to the Grand Hall opened silently, startling the occupants and causing them to cluster together. Nothing visible entered the room, but suddenly they all felt that they were no longer alone.
"If you think I can be deceived so easily, you will be unpleasantly suprised."
He might have felt that he was at the end of his life and nearly at deaths door, but the Duke felt no wish to knock. With the tiniest of gestures he sent a cascade of energy at the being he sensed in the doorway. The Dealers might have been the Elite of Klonors military, but the Duke had posessed an Emitter Set long before the Dealers had even been conceived. He had used them for centuries and his control over them was unrivaled. He could feel the energy that the Dealers could only blindly club.
"No surprise is unpleasant."
The energy evaporated before reaching the visitor, but the Duke had unleashed a second burst before the first had even left his body entirely. Then a third wave was launched, then a fourth. Before long the Duke was pouring flame into the newcomer, seeking retribution for the death of so many of what he had come to see as his children. None reached the unseen visitor.
"You have passion."
With a flash of light a figure appeared standing in the doorway, a being that seemed to resonate with power despite looking like what one would often characterise as a 'stick figure.'
"You have strength."
The figure looked at the Duke and blinked.
"But nature cherishes the Jai."
The Duke gasped and fell to the ground.
The visitor, completely ignoring the others in the room, crossed to where the Duke lay prostrate. The toppled ruler still breathed, but he clearly wasn't going to be rising any time soon. The visitor extended his arm and the Duke rose into the air, hovering slightly off the floor in front of the mysterious figure. Then the visitor dropped to his knees and drew one of the Dukes hands towards himself. He lightly leaned forward and placed a single delicate kiss upon the Dukes knuckles, then bowed his head to the floor.
"And the Jai cherish you."
"Control? Control? Are you insane? What do you have control of?"
"Sir, please, control yourself. We can handle this. But you must stay in this room."
"Why? What makes this room better than any other room to die in?"
The Grand Duke Solomon Klonor was nearly hysterical, he was panicing and it was obvious to everybody around him. That alone, more than the extreme circumstances they found themselves in, was enough to instill terror in the hearts of everybody else present. For the Duke, a man who had actually been killed more times than they could count, to lose control was something they simply couldn't deal with. Fortunately, many of them didn't have to deal with it for long.
"Sir, please, stay calm and stay here. We'll take care of everything."
With a quick salute the seven Dealers present in the room, enough military might to conquer a small planet, turned and exited the Grand Hall of the Deneb Vicegral Palace and began to make their way towards the Palace's exterior defences. As they passed through the empty rooms of the Palace, ensuring that the grand mansion had been emptied of everybody they could clear out, they began to slow down and fan out, obviously expecting trouble the closer they got to the exterior. When they were a bare few rooms from the main exit they froze completely, all pulling concealed weapons from their loose clothing and visibly preparing themselves for death before proceeding to the exit. They were not disappointed.
The exit hall was littered with corpses, the floor literally covered with a carpet of tattered flesh, and only a bare few soldiers were still standing and well enough to man the guns that insured nothing would get into the Palace. Of the dozen men still alive, even the the best of them seemed severely injured and barely able to stand. Towards the front of the baricades one of the survivors stood up and turned to the newly arrived Dealers. He was a mountain of a man, nearly seven feet tall and a veritable wall of muscle, and seemed to be the only one without a nearly fatal wound. He saluted the new arrivals, but quickly turned back to his weaponry.
Status.
Teams 09 and 13 have been eliminated. We have lost contact with 05 and 02 has been halved. Still no sighting of the enemy. No communication.
Off-planet teams?
Gone.
The new arrivals nodded, then four began moving again and quickly exited the Palace while the other three stayed to lend their support to the wounded Marines and single Dealer that had, as yet, managed to keep the attackers out of the Palace and away from the Duke. With a small nod to the other soldiers the new Dealers began to focus their minds and glow with an inner energy, readying themselves for the next onslaught as the four others began to search the surrounding city for the unseen attackers. This time, they were disappointed.
The surrounding city, a jungle of concrete and steel, stretched for miles in every direction and was home to millions of Klonor citizens, both Human and otherwise. Except for its sheer size, one of the largest in the Association, it was indistinguishable from any of a hundred other cities strung throughout the Universe. That was the problem. It was to be expected that a city under siege, with its military being devastated by an unknown force that swept aside the most powerful of defences as easily as brushing aside a strand of silk strung before them, would be filled with frenzied mobs fleeing for the hills and massive destruction all around. It was not expected, however, that there would be no visible damage to the buildings and that the populace would be going about their business as if nothing had happened. To their knowledge, nothing had happened. They saw none of what had happened. It was the same everywhere in the Association.
It had begun a bare week ago, during the close of one of the smaller Civil Wars in Klonors history, with the disappearance of Dealer Team 08 after their capture of General Lions. Recovery craft dispatched after their failure to contact the Gamma Draconis base found only four corpses in eight pieces, a devastated wasteland scarred by the Dealers attempts at defence, and Lions nearly dead from starvation within the cage the Dealers had strapped him in. He had long since gone mad and shed no light on what had happened, nor did the remains of the Dealers. Within an hour three more teams had dropped off the scope without warning. Only one Dealer had managed to survive long enough to get a message to Supreme General Richard Ihm at Gamma Draconis, and then it had only been two short words: The Jai.
After that Dealers began dropping left and right, averaging out to one a day, and all surviving members had been called back to Deneb to ensure the Dukes survival. The fact that the attacks were only on the personal guards of the Duke almost guaranteed that he was the ultimate target. But still nothing made sense, since the attacks had been on the Dealers and the Dealers alone, the rest of the Klonor Space Corps left untouched except when they interfered. Thus, there were no massive space battles, no cities levelled from orbit, only individual men dying here and there across a span of several thousand light-years. The populace was easily kept ignorant.
But, whether the people knew about it or not, the Dealers were still being systematically wiped out, along with any standard Klonor Marines that were unlucky enough to be with them when they were eliminated. Eventually they had all but ceased to exist, a bare four Duty Teams and the Denebian Guard still left, and now it seems even the four Duty Teams were no more. The Denebian Guard were all that were left and, supported by the entire might of the Klonor Space Corps, they were still determined to keep the attackers out of the Vicegral Palace and way from the Duke. Unfortunately, determined or not, they failed miserably.
The four Dealers searching the city fell within minutes of leaving the Palace, caught unawares by the unseen enemy and falling to pieces, literally, in plain sight of the populace with no visible cause to anybody who witnessed it. The four left at the Palace entrance, manning the heavy weapons emplacements and supported by several thousand freshly arrived troops from the orbiting Destroyers, lasted longer. When the first Dealer fell, sliced neatly without the others even aware of a threat, they simply began to fire indiscriminately out from the Palace. The Dealers unleashed a flood of energy that would have obliterated any living thing caught in its path, the soldiers filled the air with an uncountable amount of bullets and an unmeasurable amount of energy from their less sophisticated but equally deadly weaponry. A second Dealer fell, this time accompanied by several dozen Marines as well, and the two surviving Dealers halted their attack. As the Marines continued, even escalated, their firing the two Dealers began to form a solid wall of energy in front of them, seeking to block anything from entering into the Palace. The wall flashed and seethed, battered by the unseen forces. The Dealers gritted their teeth and forced more of themselves into the wall, enforcing it and deflecting the next three attacks. It seemed as if they had succeeded, that they had managed to finally halt the mysterious enemies, when a single powerful blow shattered the wall and cast energy across those behind it. Many of the Marines screamed as they were scarred by the heat, but more simply tightened their fingers on their triggers and kept trying to hit what they couldn't see. Seconds later the two Dealers fell, and mere moments after that the guns of the Marines fell silent as the thousands of soldiers slumped to the ground amid a few gasps and the occasional sob before all was silent.
The Duke, watching on one of the many video monitors in the Grand Hall, stifled a sob and turned the the few men with him.
"That's it then. It's over."
His voice was flat, lifeless, dead. It was as if a corpse was speaking from the Dukes body.
"But.....sir?"
"What more can we do?"
Not even when Salm had had the Duke within his grasp had he actually given up, not when the still unknown secret society had destroyed his mind from the inside did he despair, not when he'd awoken from a hundred year slumber to find nearly the entire Universe changed had he lost hope. But now, with the entire Dealer force obliterated effortlessly and a seemingly unstoppable force now coming for him, he began to tread down those often avoided paths. It crossed his mind that an enemy this powerful, this resourceful, this intelligent, might have the technology to not only kill him, but to make him stay dead. That this time he might not be coming back, that this time he wouldn't wake up from his slumber and return to what was rightfully his. For what felt like the first time in his life, he thought he faced the end of his life. However, instead of the peace and serenity that the cheesy novels always said people felt when their time was up, he felt nothing but dread, regret, and fear.
The door to the Grand Hall opened silently, startling the occupants and causing them to cluster together. Nothing visible entered the room, but suddenly they all felt that they were no longer alone.
"If you think I can be deceived so easily, you will be unpleasantly suprised."
He might have felt that he was at the end of his life and nearly at deaths door, but the Duke felt no wish to knock. With the tiniest of gestures he sent a cascade of energy at the being he sensed in the doorway. The Dealers might have been the Elite of Klonors military, but the Duke had posessed an Emitter Set long before the Dealers had even been conceived. He had used them for centuries and his control over them was unrivaled. He could feel the energy that the Dealers could only blindly club.
"No surprise is unpleasant."
The energy evaporated before reaching the visitor, but the Duke had unleashed a second burst before the first had even left his body entirely. Then a third wave was launched, then a fourth. Before long the Duke was pouring flame into the newcomer, seeking retribution for the death of so many of what he had come to see as his children. None reached the unseen visitor.
"You have passion."
With a flash of light a figure appeared standing in the doorway, a being that seemed to resonate with power despite looking like what one would often characterise as a 'stick figure.'
"You have strength."
The figure looked at the Duke and blinked.
"But nature cherishes the Jai."
The Duke gasped and fell to the ground.
The visitor, completely ignoring the others in the room, crossed to where the Duke lay prostrate. The toppled ruler still breathed, but he clearly wasn't going to be rising any time soon. The visitor extended his arm and the Duke rose into the air, hovering slightly off the floor in front of the mysterious figure. Then the visitor dropped to his knees and drew one of the Dukes hands towards himself. He lightly leaned forward and placed a single delicate kiss upon the Dukes knuckles, then bowed his head to the floor.
"And the Jai cherish you."