Authors: Greg Fish
“These creatures are the direct descendants of the machines that almost conquered the Dark Gods’ home world,” explained Ace. “You won’t see this mentioned too much, but the last minutes of that war ended in a strange dual invasion. Both the Shape Shifters and the Dark Gods landed each other’s home worlds trying to land the final blow first. In the end, the Shifters had to surrender just a few moments before a swarm of these machines was about the kill the Dark Gods’ rulers because they didn’t want to sacrifice their leaders to the worms. When they left this galaxy, the Shape Shifters got the Guardians to protect their secrets and quite a few of their leftover weapons. And I think these Guardians will give us a chance to hack our way to the Dark God home world if we integrate them in our fleet. You wanted an edge? Here it is.”
Sergio carefully studied the Guardian for a few moments.
“I’d like to see them in action,” he said. “Sounds very interesting but I want to know what they can do before we get this moving. How about we start with the worms’ outpost on Sigma 07Xd?”
[ chapter _ 032 ]
Losing an election was one of the most horrific things in the life of a politician. It wasn’t about the money since most politicians were wealthy and didn’t need a government salary. They made more from buying mutual funds and stocks anyway. No, what made losing elections so terrible was the politician’s removal from power. Even lobbyists refused to work with defeated politicians, especially losing incumbents since they needed powerful, active and respected politicos to arrange meetings with even more powerful politicos, not some washout who was kicked out of office.
After losing his bid to stay Councilor, Newman retreated to one of his mansions on the coast of the capital hyper-city and insisted on staying there, out of the public eye. Phone calls and e-mails from the press went unanswered, slapped with the generic label of “there will be no comment at this time.” The last thing he needed was the press yanking him into the middle of its constant debates about the loss of the neo-traditional influence on the Council.
His party’s media machine was in mourning mode, bemoaning the TVG’s predictable loss as if it was something completely unexpected, out of the blue, and altogether incomprehensible. The progressives beamed, freshly victorious from the campaign trail and hunted down anyone who dared to challenge their power to label them as woefully out of touch with the public. They breathlessly advertised grand plans for a downright utopian future empowered by the “enlightened public,” and of course, the Nation. They made bold declarations of what exactly the voters were saying with their backlash against the neo-traditionalists and for those who had any trouble knowing where their beliefs lay, a progressive pundit had no problem telling them what their worldview should be.
The reaction to Nelson’s words was obvious and so was the backlash against those he indicted of negligence for the sake of ideology, but the media felt no compunction to stick with the obvious or the facts and felt free to extrapolate whatever it wanted from simple, clear and concise statements offered by everyday people on the street as to why they voted for the Progressive Movement. Newman didn’t want to step into this fray while he was still licking his wounds.
He sat on a spacious sea-side deck of his beach home. There were no lights in the house except for the faint flickering of the holographic TV. He was alone with a small squadron of martinis, staring at the calm, crystal clear waves that gently licked the sand. His family was on the other side of the world for the last month, having exhausted all they could offer during the campaign. The family of a Councilor was a mere afterthought, a pawn in screaming matches about morality and little more. After all, this line of work was shaping the world for a very loud and reliable constituency of cash rich special interest groups. If the Councilors spent all their free time on family, it would reduce the amount of time they could spend reshaping the world for another donation.
Newman took a sip of his martini. The lemon drop was nice. His tastes often leaned to straight alcoholic beverages but he thought he would liven it up a bit. He didn’t drink to get drunk and he never did. He just drank until his mind focused on brighter and happier things, many of them set in the past. Some of them set on an ex-mistress. If your wife lived on the other side of the world and your kids thought that only your career mattered to you, refusing to get together for just about anything other than formal events, you’d probably be thinking of a mistress too. At least that was Newman’s logic.
In the darkness of the night, he spotted a shadowy figure walking across the white sand of the beach. It was a woman. A very shapely, attractive woman with pleasing curves. She was walking towards his deck at a leisurely pace. Newman’s brain, somewhat dulled by three drinks at this point, coughed and sputtered as it kicked into gear. If this highly appealing shape in the dark had a cute face as well, it was probably a good idea to try and seduce her. The flashy house, a rank in society that demanded respect and signaled inevitable fame would be a good start. After a story about his broken heart and the coldness of his marital life (as well as a few powerful alcoholic concoctions), she would bend to his will. At least that’s how he did it when he was younger.
As the woman came closer, he noticed that she was a cyborg. Oh well, there goes his chance to get lucky. Though he suddenly started to get curious whether a cyborg could give good head. He heard that their carbon skin felt soft and warm and their mouths were extremely similar to those of humans, wet with enzymes similar to saliva. But she was a Shadow Demon so she’d have to be very careful with her fangs.
The female cyborg stepped on his deck and knocked on the thick wooden poles that held the deck’s roof. She spoke seductively, like a purring cat.
“Mr. Newman I presume?” she asked.
“You presume right,” nodded Newman.
“You look awfully lonely. Would you mind some company?”
“Of course not, ma’am. I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name...”
“I’d be surprised if you did. I didn’t introduce myself yet.”
“Ah, good. That means I’m not old and deaf yet. Just old.”
He cracked a smile and the woman gave him a warm, yet sadly obvious pity chuckle in reply. She sat in a chair on the opposite side of the narrow table, crossing her legs with care so as not to let the long, hip to hem slit of her skirt show anything more.
“My name is Mai,” she introduced herself.
“Pleasure to make your acquaintance. Martini?”
“No thank you Mr. Newman. My body doesn’t absorb alcohol.”
“No resistance?”
“No liver.”
“Oh...”
Newman cleared his throat to fill in the awkward pause.
“So what brings you here tonight?” he asked.
“The view and the company,” was the reply.
“Really? By the way, is it Ms. Mai or Mrs. Mai?”
“It’s Ms. Mai now.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Oh I wouldn’t if I were you. You know my ex-husband.”
“When have I met him?”
“Slightly over a year ago.”
Newman gazed at his drink as if it turned into a poisonous snake.
“You don’t mean,” he started, “that you were married to Ace, do you? I thought he was...”
“Oh I was his wife for a few hundred years until we had a little scrap about the future fate of the Nation. That’s when he kicked me to the curb and took over as the head of the High Command.”
“And what happened to you?”
“I was left to my own devices after a separation. He didn’t marry again and neither did I. He was too busy running the Nation while I went into deep space to take my mind off things.”
“Did that work?”
“No, not really. I watched the Nation from far away and saw just how much chaos we caused in the galaxy. I shouldn’t be here. Ace or Dot or Nelson or the Nation shouldn’t be here. It was really a terrible mistake all this happened.”
“And it’s all Ace’s fault, huh?”
“Not really. I can’t say that it’s all his fault because I contributed to this problem just as much as he did. But he didn’t stop and that’s a major issue right now. Everybody’s wondering when the Nation will stop expanding and stop fighting. And everybody’s worried that the Earth will become just another extension of Ace’s empire. You were clever enough to understand this while the public at large wasn’t. So that’s why you were the Councilor while they were the counseled.”
“Well thank you for the compliment.”
“It’s not a compliment. It’s just stating the facts. You warned the people and they refused to listen because Ace’s henchmen showered them with flashy gifts.”
“You don’t like Ace very much, do you?”
“Well... I can’t say that I hate him. He was a wonderful husband until the power went to his head and he was blinded by his ambition. When we were still humans, I fell head over heels for him and when he started the Nation and carved out an area of space where we could live in relative peace, I really thought that things would stay the way they were before we became what we are now. All those years in deep space and special ops changed him. He sees his life as a never-ending military campaign that he has to win and everything he encounters as another opportunity to conquer or annex.”
“So you love him, but hate what he’s become?”
“That’s a very good way to put it.”
Mai let a silence fall over the conversation. The lapping waves of the ocean provided a convenient backdrop for a comfortable, easy pause. Newman, on his end, thought that while this pretty cyborg probably wouldn’t stroke his member, he should enjoy her stroking his ego. He instantly kicked himself for letting his mind slip to something as depraved as sexual thoughts about a cyborg.
“You know Ms. Mai,” he said, “it’s a shame that I couldn’t help the people of this planet when I had a chance. Nelson ruined my shot when he used the bill I introduced to keep the Nation from staging giant fleets in our orbit to accuse me of being negligent.”
“You have to realize something about the way they think. Many of the Nation’s big shots are old, hardcore astronauts. In their youth, they were constantly being promised that humanity was just about to become a space faring species that would live among the stars. But it never happened for them until there was a quick burst of exploration. When Ace and I went to Mars, it was after two centuries of promises that there would be colonies on Mars and the Moon and that humans would set up permanent outposts there to learn what it takes to travel to the stars.”
“Well that did eventually happen.”
“And now what? Humans haven’t been to the stars for a thousand years and they’re not even interested in going. All the old outposts are gone and dismantled or standing there like monuments to another time, covered in sand. In the 1900s, we were told that we’d be on the Moon by 1969, on Mars by 1985 and headed to Alpha Centauri by 2000. As of 2015, Mars was supposed to be colonized and terraforming it would a simple matter of time. By 2050, we were supposed to be able to send ships back and forth between the stars with antimatter engines. When did this actually happen? We got the Moon in 1969. Everything else was very, very late.
“Mars in 2034. Lunar colonies in 2053. Saturn in 2099. Epsilon Eridani in 2383. And none of it lasted. They feel cheated, angry and frustrated because the promises made to them for so many years just didn’t happen. Now, when they’re in a position to make all these old dreams finally come true, they’re taking charge. If you can’t develop the technology, they’ll sell it to you. If you don’t want to go, they’ll find a reason to take you there. If you won’t invest, they’ll make it impossible for you not to. All they care about, are the promises made to humans for the last 1,600 years.”
“Do you feel the same way?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not very keen on just letting them barge in without any regard for what the people want. It’s just not right.”
“Unfortunately, I’m not sure how you would stop them.”
“I can’t. But you could if you keep up the fight. While you sit on your ass and become a martini connoisseur, these guys are throwing down the gauntlet to the whole galaxy. They have a dream and even the Dark Gods won’t stop them. They ran you over because you had enough power to block them and they leveraged you out of your seat. Fine. But this is bigger than you. Bigger than the Council. This is the fate of the world Mr. Newman. Literally and truly.”
Newman’s heart beat a little faster. Damn! This girl could make the kinds of speeches that made one’s blood boil. She could motivate anyone to take on the whole goddamn universe! No wonder she was chosen to be a Commander in her past. That kind of fire was just what a new state needed to get its footing and establish its mission in existence. And let’s not forget, that she gave him an ego stroking so good, he needed a smoke.
“Well Ms. Mai,” he started after a long drag on his martini. “I’m very happy that you decided to have this talk with me. I needed that. Maybe I could finally make people see that I’m not just some empty suit who poses for the camera every six years and supports ridiculous shit solely for the sake of donations. I need to have a goal, a purpose, something by which people will know me. Because after all, without purpose or a legacy, even an immortal life isn’t worth living.”
Mai nodded in agreement.
“How right you are Mr. Newman.”
She stood up and walked around the table, stopping a few inches in front of Newman. She took the glass cone out of his hand and set it down on the table as she slid her leg onto his chair. Her face froze within easy reach of his lips. She bit her lower lip seductively as her piercing, red eyes bore into his blurry, watery pupils.
“By the way...” she purred.
“Yes...”
“When you stare like that...”
“Like what?”
“When you stare at a woman’s legs and breasts, she knows what you want. It’s so obvious and for some reason men try to hide it. It’s pretty silly if you ask me.”