A/N: This was written in 2004, and introduces an alternate universe called the Karzan Universe.
We didn't know why they came. But they came, glaring silver against the black night. Mothers held their children close and gazed up at the sky in fear, and people ran. Against the fiery light their ships came down, massive and bright. They were sleek and beautiful, painted in vibrant colors, almost looking organic in a way. The people fled, but there was no hope for them. There was nowhere left to run from these strange beings from space.
The hatch opened and figures moved down a ramp onto the earth below. They were wearing tight, smooth armor painted in the same colors as their ship, blue and red for these, but they had the normal amount of arms and legs. When the leader removed his tall, smooth helmet, I could catch a glimse of his features, and he did not look so very alien after all. One might almost call him human but for the tips of his pointed ears poking through his long black hair.
He did not raise his weapons, but pulled a device from his belt and spoke into it. When he spoke his words echoed and were amplified and could be heard quite some ways away. He said, "I represent the Galactic Karzan Empire. Surrender and you will not be harmed. Repeat, surrender and you will not be harmed." Although he spoke the words in a very stilted and correct manner, with a touch of a strange accent, it was easy enough to understand what he was saying.
People continued to run. Some cowered behind fences and walls, but one bold youth, a boy that could not be older than sixteen, approached the aliens boldly. "We will not surrender! You will not take our planet! Go back to where you came from, aliens!" The leader made a small gesture, and the alien standing to his right raised his weapon and fired at the boy. A blast of blue energy struck him full in the chest, and he went sprawling, massive burns across his body. I couldn't imagine that he survived it somehow.
"Are there any other objectors?" asked the leader calmly. The crowd scattered and broke apart, even more panicked than they were before. But I remained where I was, hunched behind a low wall and watching them. No one else gave them an answer.
As the plaza emptied and the streets grew silent, the leader began walking, his companions flanking him as he went. There were four of them besides the leader, not so many that a crowd couldn't bring them down, even with their strange energy weapons. And if we could bring them down and get our hands on one of their weapons, we might stand a chance. But as I glanced back at their massive ships, I realized how futile that train of thought was. There were doubtless thousands more of them on board, all armed with those deadly blasters. What chance did we really have against that kind of firepower?
One of them must have spotted me, as they were coming over toward me. I held my ground motionlessly and silently. The leader came around the wall and up toward me in the shadow of the old hickory tree, while his guards stood on the other side of the wall, staring off in different directions, keeping watch. He put away the voice amplifier and fingered his weapon warily. I stared up into his almost-human face, his eyes gleaming bright green in the glow from the ships.
"Stand," he said to me. I slowly straightened and got to my feet, my eyes glancing briefly toward the guards as I did so. They were still watching the streets. "State your name."
"Talia," I said.
"Is that all of your name?" he asked.
"Talia Richards."
He glanced likewise toward the guards himself, then back to me, as if unsure exactly what to make of me. "Do you surrender and accept the rule of the Karzan Empire?"
My eyes wandered involuntarily to the burnt corpse of the teenage boy. The way to stop a train was not to stand in front of it, but to climb inside it and stop it from there. "Yes," I said.
"Good," the alien said. "I am Sorel Tarnos, captain of the Dirazor. We call ourselves the El'dari. Come with me." He turned and went back toward his ship, and I followed, the guards bringing up the rear and staying at the foot of the ramp as we climbed into the bowels of the ship.
The vessel was as strange and bright on the inside as it was from the outside. I squinted for a moment as my eyes adjusted to the light enough for me to get a better view of my surroundings, stumbling after Captain Tarnos as best as I could. Just being inside this ship felt strange, and I could feel a psychic resonance from all around me. I mainly stared at the floor as we walked, not really caring if they took it as a sign of submission or not.
We came out of the hallways and into a larger room, a door sliding open to allow us entrance. The lights were either dimmer in here or my eyes had adjusted enough for me to see finally. The floor was carpeted here and the room was furnished as some sort of lounge. There were even potted plants decorating the corners of the room. There were other aliens that came into the room from other doors, to each side. They were dressed in a similar manner, although slightly differently, and one of them had hair of a rich burnished gold sliding down past his ears instead of raven black like the others. They spoke to one another briefly in a language I could not follow before turning back to me.
"You are the leader of Earth," the one on the left said. He had blue eyes underneath his pitch black hair, and they had a vaguely Oriental look to them.
"No," I said. "I'm not."
"You are the leader of Earth," he repeated. His English wasn't as smooth as the captain's, marked by a heavy alien accent. I glanced toward Captain Tarnos in confusion.
"We will bring down those who try to oppose us," Sorel Tarnos said. "We place you there as leader of Earth under us in their place."
"I see," I said nervously, wondering what sort of game they were playing. They didn't seem to be being deceptive, however. The blue-eyed one seemed the most devious of them, whereas the captain seemed more honest and straightforward. But there was something odd about the golden-haired one that I could not pinpoint.
The blue-eyed alien and the captain spoke again for a while in their language, but the gold-haired one continued to stand there silently looking at me, and I looked back. This was the most dangerous one, I realized. Not the captain, not the other.
As the alien gazed at me, a voice rustled in my head unexpectedly. "You are a most perceptive one." I blinked for a moment, startled, and stared at the golden-haired alien. "Don't act so surprised. I know you're no stranger to the abilities of the mind."
I was speechless, uncertain how to respond to this. "Perhaps," I replied cautiously.
"Ah," he continued. "You plan to bring down the Empire from the inside, do you? How quaint." I shifted nervously. "It would not do for the wrong minds to pick that up, now would it. Oh, don't look so alarmed. Do calm down. I certainly won't be the one to kill you for it. You work with me, I'll make sure nobody finds out our little secret, hmm?"
I stared at him for a long moment, trying to determine if he was trying to use me, or blackmail me, or both. I finally sent him a mental nod as the captain and the other alien finished talking.
"Yes, yes, by the way," Captain Tarnos said to me, "This is my chief strategist, Dolosk Fren." He gestured with his right hand to the blue-eyed alien. "And my chief of information, Anderos Velarh." He gestured with his left to the golden-haired psyker. I nodded hesitantly in greeting to them.
Our conversation was interrupted unexpectedly by a disturbance outside. The captain calmly flicked a button and a view of the outside came on a screen on one wall. It appeared that the military had finally arrived and were firing ineffectually at the spaceships. The bullets ricocheted harmlessly off the brightly painted hull, failing to even make a dent. There was a flash of blue light coming from the left, and the men went down. One of the alien guards came on the screen, blasting away at the humans. They turned and tried to shoot at him instead, but their bullets failed to penetrate his armored suit.
"They are your countrymen," Anderos's voice whispered in my head. "Do you feel no remorse at their deaths?"
I didn't respond, staring at the screen and evaluating their technology. The bullets stood no chance of penetrating the hull of the ship, but the suits could not be that strong. And they would probably be more effective at stopping projectiles than they would bludgeoning weapons. I wondered how the suits would fair against other energy weapons.
"No remorse," Anderos continued. "So cold and analytical, mmm? Fascinating."
I glanced sidelong at the alien for a moment, who had an amused smirk on his face. Unlike the captain and the strategist, his English was flawless, no doubt due to his psychic abilities. The others did not scare me. Entire ships full of untold numbers of aliens did not scare me. But that one man did.
Anderos Velarh had a disturbing smile on his face, but made no comment to these thoughts. I wished I could read him as well as he apparently could read me.
A voice came up over a speaker somewhere, speaking in that alien language. Captain Tarnos gave a short reply and pressed a button again, and the screen went black.
"I'm putting you under the command of Anderos Velarh for now," Sorel Tarnos said to me. "You will be assigned quarters and properly equipped for the next stage in our mission. Dismissed."
Anderos took me out back down the corridors into another, smaller room. "These will be your quarters," he said, the door sliding shut behind him. I suddenly felt very alone with him. He leaned close and smiled at me unnervingly.
"Thank you," I stammered, uncertain what to say. He made me feel very strange.
"You are not a fully trained psyker," he drawled, placing his hand on my shoulder. "No, I don't imagine there was anyone on this backwater planet who could train you properly, mmm."
"No," I said hesitantly. "I don't know many..." I stared into his eyes, like deep dark pools. His hand slowly slid down my back, and I shivered involuntarily.
"I could teach you, you know," he whispered, leaning so close I could feel his breath on my neck. "There are far more of us among the El'dari than your own people, but ones with such great talent and potential? Not so many. Yes..."
"What-What do you want with me?" I breathed.
"Mmm. Nothing, and everything." Anderos's lips touched my neck, electric and exciting in me an unexpected passion. There was no way I could resist this. "Do you surrender?" he whispered in my ear.
"Yes," I said softly. There was no other answer I could give. I'd never felt anything quite like this before. Was it because he was an alien... or because he was a psyker? Or something else entirely?
"Still analyzing everything?" he murmured. "Well, analyze this."
I gasped aloud as I felt his mind brush across mine, and slipping deep within, almost merging into one for one moment that was eternity. It all seemed so surreal, yet at the same time, more real than anything I had ever experienced before in my life. An explosion of color burst across my mental vision, purple and yellow and colors I didn't even have names for, cascading around me as if opening up an entirely new dimension I had previously been unaware of.
Then when it was over, Anderos gently withdrew from my mind, and I found myself laying there in his arms, still shaking slightly. I lay there speechless, breathless, my head resting on his shoulder. He stroked my hair gently.
"You will be great, one day," he whispered. "You've more potential than this entire ball of dirt put together. Yes... You will be great."
A/N: The next story in the Karzan Universe is "Dancing on the Edge of Death".