The Traitor's Legacy
These years, the self named alien years have been kind to Zetkral. His ascent to power began back when he was but a lowly servant of Jurai's household, seventy years ago. He lived to serve but with a fixed smile to hide his anguish and disgust that he should be governed over others when he knew he could do it better himself. The Jurain court was a place of opportunities, true but only to the Emperor and his woman. It was no secret that everyone wanted to move up the ranks by winning the eye of their master, an unelected council had to more or less win the favour of the one who decides who should get it. Zetkral never had a charm like the others; he was before the alien years, a petty and insignificant man. It was no secret that to earn the Emperor's favour and be rewarded with one of the highest places in Jain authority was to be able to prove oneself to be a candidate to marrying his eldest daughter. He remembered giving up on the whole system, the so called wisdom of Jura's ruler when out of all he looked down as an appropriate for Ayeka's to be mate that it was to be someone with hair of pink and pranced around. Seiryo , a deformity of nobility. Still Seiryo was rejected at the time and shortly after that began the alien years. The era that raised him to an ultimate status.
Sitting in his comfortable chair, in a office of luxury that none outside could afford, he remembered the alien years, as the enslaved would refer to it as. He remembered the aliens, the entities making their presence; Jurai was in shock over the sudden incursion from a mysterious force. No 'first contact' no signal, nothing, they simply came and landed on each territory of Jurai and its homeworld. It wasn't thought possible at the time to meet something more stronger then Jurai but the entities came and whenever a ship tried to engage it, its powersource was simply switched off, even when salvaged, an attempt to restart life in the ship failed. It was just pieces of wood and nothing more. They couldn't however withstand one person, an earthling, another cheap line of blood and nobility, he didn't look to be the suitor to the throne no more as Seiryo was. Yet he saw on the screens, as must have the entities who fled from the boy, seven light hawk wings with an incredible amount of power. It felt the incursion would become a temporary fuss, no more then Kagato's raid on Jurai but he was ahead of all the others, nobody knew or thought of the scheme that he had at the start. The boy had a weakness, a very simple one. Bitterly Zetkral came to learn Ayeka was interested in him and he as he would with any of the girls would do anything to protect them and their friends. Zetkral took the gamble of his life back than and though it clearly paid off, hr didn't know if it would at the time. He was at the time in a position were he entitled to learn about the defences of planet Jurai itself, the guardianship of the first tree was utterly essential as well as the royal family.
Using guts, cunning and fortunate, he sold himself to the enemy but they weren't the enemy to him. They were an opportunity and they offered him protection because they were impressed with what they learnt and bypassed Jurai's defences, seizing the tree and holding Ayeka's family hostage. Tenchi had one flaw that Zetkral exploited. They boy had a heart and reluctantly without wanting blood on his hands exchanged himself for them. The entities took they boy away, they promised Jurai would be given self rule. Jurai did for a short amount of time till the entities awarded him with that planet. It made perfect sense really, only he had earned their trust, only he had made face to face contact with them and gave them what they want. Anyone who wanted to make contact with the entities for whatever reason, to file a petition, to enrol in their service, to request information, had to go through his office, his interface. The Zetkral interface: He had slapped his own name right on it for all to see. A sign of power? Most certainly, he now had mastery over life and death, here. What he understood, and hardly anybody else did was that the entities paid essentially no attention at all to these petitions and even the offers of service. They were above all that, they were not Jurain, they did not care about anything Jurai. The simply put a clever figurehead like him to 'represent' their freedom, there was little, if any, free choice amongst Jurai given all the weapons were armed by the soldiers of the entities, not the entities themselves, but their 'hired muscle' and he helped co-ordinate them while ensuring that every man woman and child made good use of the labour plants. Jurai if anything was now just a supply port for a very demanding alien empire. Jurauns can live for centuries but for many, seventy years of slavery was becoming too much for them. Zatkral ensured the authorities did their job with a heavy hand to remind the overall population that they were subjects to the master now, even he was a subject, but with privileges. He represented the entities decisions, based on his own assumptions knowing the basic goals that were given to him, huge public works came into force because he believed the entities desired them to exist. Was that not power? Supreme power? He was more then just a viceroy; he was the voice of the new order.
And fame-
-Ah. A touchy matter, that. There was fame and then there was fame. His name was known throughout the land, some felt he was doing a honest job in aiding the people, they were won over by his smiles when he publicly visited the sick and the young, those who he talked to were impressed, but then they were pretty much slaves and he could send them to the TTD system (Tested to Destruction) Ruthlessness brought a respectable group, lined up by fear but there were those who despised him for it and for what he did to get his position. They hated him more then seiryo, and that was saying something. They declared his name as the common phrase in any speech that highlights a traitor, a Zetkral was today's traitor.
He couldn't do anything about that, he had no regrets; there was no intention to harm anyone except to break out of a unfavourable system. It was inevitable he felt that the entities would prevail, how can one boy defeat an entire empire? He was smart to see the danger and moved to appease them by giving both himself and Jurai's secrets. They rewarded him with everything. If only Jurai was half as smart as he was then they would had found themselves in a much better position then they were now. The entities were destined to rule, he was just the first to realise it should be accepted, perhaps too ahead of his time to everyone else.
And here he was in this magnificent office, panelled with the rarest of exotic woods, brought in with minimum expense, he could make the price of quality any price he desired it to be, works of literature kept behind an invisible field of shielding, artistic drawings by Jurai's greatest artists laid all around the walls. Yet he rarely bothered much to properly look at them, to admire them, they there for his amusement, to build on his character and to make him all the more adorned and loved.
Transferring art to his office had been a matter of a few keystrokes from his computer.
Having some woman he fancied to his bed was just as easy.
Since the day Jurai collapsed as a government, everyone's status was made brought down to the lowest, everyone was given a permit to go somewhere and a requisition to those he selected. That involved service in his office. Those who received it knew what it meant, there were no refusals for the alternatives were worse. Transferred to a work camp in the freezing north artic, transfer to sewer sweeper, transfer to a latrine-cleaning job at a overrun immigration camp in some god forbid scorched land. If it wasn't given to the girl then it would be given to her aged mother, her dying father, her simple lover, their siblings or even their cat.
He never did forget the women he lusted, spying them for the corridors, some he never had time to talk to, some felt he was beneath them and some were above the amount he was offering to them. All of them as inaccessible to him as the inhabitants of alien worlds, hose girls were. Then.
Well, he had access to them now. And for a good part of his life as viceroy, he spent his time reintroducing himself to them. He started with the ones he rembered most, the ones with short skirts and simple dresses who dressed up for their men, well now they had to dress up for him and he enjoyed every bit of it. They came in differently, some with hatred in their eyes, some with sullen indifference, some saw his bed as their gateway to special privilege, he could be either gentle or rough to them. He was rough to those who he felt looked down at him. Some embraced, others in the process tried to reject his presence when he pushed their legs apart and went in. But they all came. Though one always stayed, she was his very own favourite. He had her for so long that she had almost accepted it. When he rung the bell she came in, she was dressed perfectly, with clothes both appealing to the eye and easy to tear by the hand, she was unwilling along ago but a threat about her younger sister changed all that. She came to him but he got up from the chair and pinned her to the wall, her breasts pressed against his chest hard and he took his time kissing and undressing his favourite.
It was remarkable to think she was once a princess.