Maalik Briggs starred at the stars in the view-screeen, trying not to see the three massive Hallaton warships. He couldn't really pronounce the word Marella had said in regards to the species that inhabited those war-ships- so his brain came up with a more simple and completely arbitrary word.
Marella was standing behind him, tapping her foot impatiently. She wanted him to leave the planet. She was, after all, his body guard and had his best survival options in mind. This filled him with forbidding, he was from this planet - and there weren't that many on it that knew of the other races in the many quadrants of the universe. As far as he knew Galactic Central had barred this planet from being visited/used/taken over.... but the Hallitons, according to Marella, were not part of Galactic Central.
One planet, that had nothing to offer the rest of the universe was certainly not enough cause to revel G.C. into protecting it. Humans, in one form or another had long since proliferated the universe - there was no shortage of them. Originally, this planet had been settled by a group of throw backs who had sworn off technology and wanted to be completely isolated and left out of the workings and ministrations of the rest of the Known Universe.
It was also one of the secret retreats of the Legionaries. Marella, was a Legionary herself. Raised to fight, battle and war since she was old enough to grasp things. Many people may not have agreed with thier culture, but in a seething Universe, their only commodore was their survival skills, which they honed and trained into the perfect soldier.
Originally, the Legionaries had one home planet and were rather respected throughout the Known Universe. Maalik was never told why or what exactly happened, but their planet was attacked and only few survived. After taking their vengeance, they then searched the Known Universe for a new home. Instead of letting their culture die out, they collected orphans as one would collect trading cards. Due to some disease the survivors contracted, they had an unbreakable metal alloy transplanted into their bones - so as their bones became brittle and broke down, the metal alloy survived. The Legionaries are rather democratic, and even though the replacement process is incredibly painful, they elected to have the replacement as soon as they were old enough to go off planet for missions. After ten or so generations, the operation was no longer necessary. The Legionaries now had a genetic bio-metal skeleton.
As a result of the paranoia of having one's planet blown up and their original race destroyed, only as much as 1/3 of the population ( if that) was ever allowed to remain on any one of the three commonly known Legionary planets at a time. Earth, was one of the secret retreats. Marella's foot tapping invaded his thoughts, were the Legionaries just going to leave this planet and abandon its people ?
Rather like Legionaries the Hallitons had thier bio-metal but not their skeletal structure, it was their skin- and with more problems. The Hallitons were a dying race. Maalik knew less about why and the inner workings of their culture as he did the Legionaries. He just knew that due to some undisclosed reason, they were rendered sterile, so they attempted cloning, which worked for a while, but they were now degrading as a species, and fewer clones were surviving. It was rumored that they were collecting humans from all over the Known Universe to introduce into their cloning program. They were already a war like race, feared throughout the Known Universe.
They were defiantly not human, they may have started out that way, but when the bio - metal and the regeneration coupled with the double nervous system had been introduced to their dna, they had left humanity far behind. From what Marella told him, thier nails and hair could cut through hull metal - it made Maalik shudder.
The unceasing tapping of her foot was driving him to action, the working of his mind, with the information he had - his eyes full of the three Haliton warships approaching - did not bode for immediate action. She had been his bodyguard for over ten years, never being allowed to leave the planet. Except when he insisted on vacation time and they supplied a temp.
Tap, tap, tap, tap. Maalik was a scientist in the Nasa program, he was very aware that the President had been contacted, and probably all the higher echelons of all other other world governments had noticed as well. Maalik was also from an incredibly wealthy family, who on the surface had donated a few thousand a year to various charities. A few thousand no one missed. He quickly pulled up all bank accounts associated with his family - even he became a bit short of breath at the end total number. He then spend ten agonizing minutes of Marella's foot tapping while he gained control of the funds.
He probably should feel somewhat bad about this, but he knew that he didnt have the money on his own to do this, and this needed to be done. Perhaps this society wasnt worth saving, perhaps all the world cultures didnt deserve to be saved- but Maalik didnt think he could live a comfortable life knowing that he had left the world populace to become equations in some cloning project. Finnally, he turned and faced the six foot redhead. "I would like to hire the Legionaries."
No comments:
Post a Comment