James Somers - Heir to the King

Date: Year 9015 (Planet Castai III)

SUCH devastation, it was like nothing the young man had ever laid his eyes on before. The entire valley before Mt. Vaseer, for miles and miles, was strewn with body after body of his warrior clan, the Barudii. The ground was a blood soaked horrorscape. Birds of prey launched skyward as he walked through the aftermath.

He had been wandering between bodies for nearly six hours. His boots were red with the blood of his people. All around him, the murderers retreated from the battlefield; the dark skinned Vorn and their vicious brute clones, the Horva. Yet they did not lay a finger to harm him-why would they? After all he was the one that had led them here; had given them the information necessary to make all of this possible. He was a villainous traitor.

"Master Kale?" asked one of the Vorn commanders, "You had better find a transport to take you back to the ship. We'll be departing soon to join the fleet."

He paused in his search. "I will be along very shortly," he said.

The dark skinned man went on about his business, rounding up the Horva for departure; their work here was finished.

Kale searched more frantically now; he had to find him, had to know if all of this was really happening or only a nightmare. Near the front lines, he saw it on the ground. The diadem was pure adomen; a costly durable alloy that bore a luster all its own. The single jewel that should have been mounted in the front was missing.

Very near, was his body; the owner of the crown and king of the Barudii. This was his father; the man whom he had betrayed into the hands of their enemies. His bloodstained expression was strangely peaceful. Kale could not take his eyes off of him. He felt frozen in place, frozen in time. Could this really have been what I wanted, he wondered? Is this my prize, my victory for the humiliation that was brought upon me?

He shut his eyes and turned away from the face, but it was still there, piercing his soul. He considered that somewhere within the city were his mother and his younger brother Tiet. How horribly had they died? His brother had only been in his eighth year; ten years the younger.

He heard the troop transports powering up and readying for take-off as the last of the combatants made their way on board. Several hundred ships to choose from, but none of them contained any friendly faces for him. He was technically on their side; but there is no honor for a traitor among any people.

He began to walk away and thought of looking back to take in one last glimpse of his father, but he couldn't do it. He didn't have to-he had a feeling that that face, its expression cast in death, would haunt him for the rest of his days.

Kale boarded one of the transport ships that carried thousands of Vorn and Horva and stood next to a view port. The massacre was less personal from the air. He was the only one who was left of his people; the only survivor, and a traitor. He felt like pulling his weapon and stabbing it into his heart, to kill the soul wrenching agony before it could begin its feast, but he didn't have the courage.

He sat on the floor against the wall of the ship's troop compartment among a hundred smelly Horva. His people had been the guardians of Castai's clans. Now they would be ripe for picking by the Vorn.

DATE: The Year 9027 (Planet: Castai III)

NOT so long ago, in another creation of God the sky burned red and so did his emotions. A lone figure watched from his perch as people scurried to their homes on the streets below; curfew was approaching. Military personnel were stationed in threes on every major street corner to help ensure that everyone obeyed.

He watched them, down on the street beneath him; hating them. A security camera's gears whined as it swiveled on its mount next to him, looking for miscreants. He was almost in view, but not quite.

They weren't going to see him tonight. He would be a shadow, a nightmare that strikes and is gone before the senses can capture it. Orin would be angry, of course. He had been before, but now he was older, now he was ready.

The cloning facility was in view above the other rooftop-that place where monsters were bred. The Horva were their footmen; brute forms of men made for the purpose of crushing their enemies. That's what they used to kill my people.

It was a good place to start a rebellion-take down their cloning shop and cut off their source of expendable soldiers. The only trouble was he didn't really have a how for the plan.

The next rooftop was all the way across the two lane street below. When no one appeared to be looking, he leapt away from the ledge, flipped over end once and landed on the rooftop ledge across the street. Barudii kinesis was a wonderful thing, if you were the good guy. And he wanted to do some good for his fellow Castillians tonight. Maybe they would be ready to rise up to the challenge then.

He could sense the motion of the cameras on the roof and spotted them easily. He waited for them to leave a spot in their visual field for him and then he ran through to the other side of the rooftop.

The cloning facility was there just beyond a large intercity highway-the jump would be too much. Traffic was off of the streets with the onset of curfew; he could run across now. Tiet dropped off of the building, a full two hundred feet to the pavement below-yes, Barudii kinesis was a wonderful thing.

While in the air, Tiet noticed a Vorn soldier was emerging from a side door below. He adjusted his fall slightly and came down right behind the man. His hand cupped the soldier's mouth and with a quick jerk of his arm, the neck snapped. He dropped the enemy to the ground as the body went limp. He left him, hoping to be long gone before anyone discovered the body.

He ran across the empty lanes of traffic to the fence on the other side. He jumped over its barbed wire top without effort, but another layer of fencing stood on the other side. This one was electrified, according to the signs. No bother-he jumped the height of it again. This was almost too easy, he thought.

ON a security panel inside the clone complex, a warning flashed and data begin to pour onto the screen. The night security officer looked the information over. Sometimes small animals would trigger the pressure relays located all over the grounds of the complex; but not this time. The weight given at the trigger point was one hundred and fifty five pounds; way too big for one of the usual nocturnal animals active around this time.

He punched in his security code to activate the silent alarm and brought up some other scanning and video devices on the display. It took a moment, but then he saw him. A man was entering the building through one of the air vents. He brought up a schematic for the complex and zoomed in on that particular air duct. It went through an area of the detention center and then came out near the main laboratory area. This is almost too easy.

"Dr.Ranul K'ore, chief science engineer, sector seven."

"Visual and voice recognition, confirmed," said the robot.

The metal door slid open and Ranul walked past the automaton into the main lab. Since the Vorn had come to Castai twenty years ago, everything had changed. The cities were in ruins and millions from every clan had been slaughtered by the Horva army of the Vorn. Resistance was futile and had caused more deaths at every attempt.

The cruel Vorn had sent the Horva against entire cities of innocents when anyone dared disobey them. The People were desperate for relief of any kind.

Ranul's nineteen-year-old daughter had been imprisoned along with his wife Ellai to pressure him into building war machines for them. If he refused, he might never see them again. He tried to push away the pain, as he turned to continue his work.