War of the Sun Gods
Chapter 1 - I am Gråk, your information officer.
Gråk entered the Harvester 1 spacecraft.
He took his position in the co-pilot’s seat.
Nobody knew what he was about to do, but he knew he would not return.
“Good day captain” said the pilot, Captain Grem.
“Good day” Gråk said flatly.
The crew entered Harvester 1 and took their positions.
Captain Grem looked over from his pilot’s seat and eyed Gråk from head to toe, then his eyes stopped on his belt.
“What’s that?”
“The ancients would have called it a ‘gun’.”
“A gun? What’s that?”
“It’s a type of weapon, we call this one a VP70Z.”
“A weapon! By Junus, what do you need a weapon for!?”
“I’ll show you later, first I have an announcement to make.”
“An announcement?! Captain Gråk, you had better state your purpose immediately!”
Gråk turned in his co-pilot’s chair, faced the back of the ship and addressed the crew.
“My name is Gråk, some of you know me already.
I am your chief information officer and I am taking over this ship.
We are at war with the Nebulons, we will be targeting an enemy vessel, we may not return—“
“—stop right there!” Grem broke in.
There will be no capering of this vessel Captain Gråk!”
Gråk pulled his communication crystal from his pocket and put it on the console.
It played a hologram. The flickering green transparent face of General Kräk spoke:
“Gentlemen, you are on a mission to save our planet. We have intercepted messages from the Nebulon fleet. An impending danger is upon us. We must act now or die. Your mission is grave, it is one chance. It is now.
Captain Gråk will command your vessel now, by Junus – you must succeed.”
“I do not report to General Kräk!” said Captain Grem.
“Furthermore, it’s preposterous. I would have been informed—“
“There was no time. The enemy is on the way now, the council has been informed—“
“ — then I would have been informed as well! That’s it, you sit there and shut up. Ensign Blarg and Vrex, escort Captain Gråk to container 5. Hold him there until I, and only I come and get you!”
Ensign Blarg and Vrex looked at each other.
How do you ‘escort’ someone?
The Nebulons and Zebulons had been at peace for over one-hundred years. Some say over one-thousand years.
They had not trained in hand to hand combat of any sort for the same time.
Such violence, and ‘laying on of hands’, was considered so primitive that it was revolting, to the Nebulons and Zebulons alike.
Captain Grem’s face turned red in a rare show of emotion, “Do it now – that’s an order!”
Gråk watched with his arms crossed. His right eyebrow raised, he said nothing.
His lower hand went slowly to the grip of his VP70Z.
Blarg and Vrex approached him, he looked Blarg in the eyes, “One more step and you are dead.”
Blarg looked at Captain Grem, Grem glared back.
Blarg stepped…
Gråk raised his VP to chest level and fired at Blarg.
In a nanosecond, a white beam connected the VP and Blarg’s chest in a flash of light.
A burning hole from shoulder to shoulder now gaped in Blarg’s chest, he did not speak as the smoke rose from his body.
Before Blarg could fall, Captain Grem had unbuckled his harness and pounced on Gråk.
On top of Gråk and grasping wildly at his elbows, a loud thump, and then crackling noise was heard.
Captain Grem’s body lay on top of Gråk and crushed his face.
Through the burning hole in Captain Grem’s body, Gråk grasped him and threw him off.
Blarg and Grem’s bodies laid in the middle of the flight deck, small wisps of smoke rising in the conditioned sterile air.
The crew was stupefied, and stared at Gråk, unmoving.
Gråk finally broke the silence with emotionless orders; “Good. I’ll need a CTO and a Navigator. The rest of you can leave.”
“Leave? How?”
“You can all cram into the escape pods and wait for the next harvester to come by and pick you up. Or…you can come with me and save our planet.”
The one second of silence distorted in the small space in time.
It was broken by a lieutenant known as Kraig, “I’m in”.
