-Planet Z, the next day-
Warp was slurping his cognac coffee in his dining room. A couple of hours earlier he had returned from Deneveria, without Zarah. He was now under constant tension, as his Master might any moment call him for allocution. Yet there had been no sign of Zurg; a servant grub had told a bit earlier that the Emperor was testing some new inventions in the blacksmith's shop, in the cellar levels of Zurg Tower.
Warp lifted again his feet on the table as he sipped the hot drink, trying to relax. He felt very weird. What would he now say as he had not brought the engineer along? There had only come a pile of other workers as a slavery transport, but obviously none of them knew the landanah reactor construction that well, so that Zurg would build something based on their knowledge. And now... the easy mission had got a very odd turning point.
"Oh, blasting quarks! My head... like I would had used my fancy arm blaster to my own brains..." he groaned and wiped his hairline. He was for the same time disappointed and angry at himself.
"Why didn't I just shoot the stunning stuff when she was running? Why didn't I have the courage to do that? Am I starting to chicken out, brave Mr. Darkmatter playing a turkey in fronta Zurg?"
He was somewhat facing a big problem: in Zarah's cottage, he had gone through the entire luggage but found nothing. All he could present was his empty palms, or one empty palm strictly saying.
"Darn, darn me... guess the gal is running somewhere in the forest and then makes a drill to Star Command..." he banged the empty cup against the table and stood up, starting to walk nervously a circle.
"Zurg won't accept this. And the worst, I won't get paid. Well, maybe a bit hot bucks for my sore eyes, but all there has come now is a bunch of needless toilers and a heap of solid with no use. Shoul' I take a hike back to the moon and try to seek after the li'l tech geek with my infrared widgets... then bring her to Z...?" he went on thinking but suddenly stopped as if he had hit his nose against a brick. The hallucinations in his head had begun again. He saw her there kneeled on the sand and watching him with the regard. The regard. That was too much for him, even seen now as an illusion. It had stuck in his head like an indelible dreadful sight. As a ghost, she was there again, praying with her eyes to save her petty flame of life.
Cold sweat trickled along Warp's neck and he felt his knees weak.
"What is it with me? Am I sick?" he asked himself and inadvertetly sighed for relief that he had let her go. Although... he did not know the truth, yet.
During his twittery rush from a corner to another came a fearful brain-pod to interrupt him.
"Eh... Master wants to meet you, your darkness and evilness!"
Warp jerked and gathered his thoughts. Now he would have to present the fake story as well he was ever able to. He took a stiffener before leaving his villa.
Zurg was to receive Darkmatter in his throne room. But the acceptance was everything else Warp had expected. Zurg was on a very delightful mood, flying around the chamber with his jet boots, chortling nastily. As Warp stopped in front of him, he began his flooding speech.
"Darkmatter, Darkmatter, we have succeeded! This is a little step for Planet Z, but a big leap for the mighty Evil Emperor Zurg! The future is now in our hands, as we shall be capable soon to produce unmeasured amounts of energy for our appropriate purposes...!"
Warp was silent. What was this? A play? Or did he see hallucinations again? How could Zurg build anything if he did not have Zarah?
"You have perfectly completed your mission and shall gain the price I promised. Emperor Zurg will never break his promise concerning the loyal henchmen of the dark side."
"Um... I have?" Warp tried to look indifferent and leer at the ceiling. He had no idea what his boss was talking about, but decided to play along, winning thus some time.
"Indeed. Still there is one thing to wonder..." Zurg fingered his loudspeaker.
Now there it was. Warp prepared to give the white lies. "And that is..." he began, biting his lips.
"I thought you would bring the main target by yourself and not to give the job to your useful assistants."
"Um... she was...eh..." Warp nervously started but was cut short.
"The main thing is that she is here now. We might go to see, whether she has awakened from the insensibility." Zurg waved his hand and gave a holo-transmission to a couple of grubs who would guide the men to their aim.
Warp lumbered silently behind Zurg's cloak with a nerved expression. "Am I hearing mirages... eh... senseless noises? How can Z claim that she's here if I let her go? Or is this a trap to get me to confess what I've done?" he deliberated. It was easy to see, that Darkmatter did not trust his master worth of a uni-dime. Nevertheless, this was no ambush. Zarah had been captured and transported to Planet Z with the other workers. Maybe it was not meant to happen like that, but Zurg had got his booty after all, was the means whatever. The Dark Lord himself had been monitoring the slavery ships and stopped a hyper-hornet that was carrying the particular woman. Although the robot was stupid, it did not mean that Zurg would have had the same defect in his brains. Hence, he had ordered the droid to bring G'Deneb into the reserved cell, to wait for the waking up and then -if she was stubborn a girl- torture.
The men descended several floors down, to the cellar levels. The grub leaded them at a small and dark chamber. Luckily Warp was walking behind Zurg, so the master did not see the affect of his apprentice. Namely, Warp's heart was to stop when he saw the cell and its lodger. The room was murky and wet; a hard mattress had been unrolled onto the floor beside a lightly leaking pipe. A weak light crystal brought some life to the cold stone walls. On the mattress, the woman sat hugging her knees and shivering with cold. There was not much help of her outfit here; the torn overalls and her blousette did not fit in the climate of Planet Z. She had come conscious for a short while ago, understanding perfectly where she was.
"Wonder why they didn't kill me", she sneered at herself, when being aware of Zurg and Warp's presence outside the cell bars. She did not see properly the villains, but gave a glance towards them, a regard that was full of detestation. Instead Warp, whose vision was very good in the dark, got his eyes immediately attached to this glower. Although Zarah did not know, it was aimed straight towards him, straight to face his racking mind. There they were again, those piercing, green eyes that went through every internal organ and reflection of Warp. When he met them, he tapped a rave step backwards so that he nearly stumbled. There was something overwhelming in the atmosphere. He felt something strangling his throat, as if an invisible hand had suddenly collared him. For the first time in his life he was afraid.
"Darkmatter?" Zurg turned about when he heard Warp messing up with his strides.
"Ah... I guess I stepped on something sharp... maybe there's a piece of stone in my boot..." he hastily made up something.
"I think your regular outfit was designed so intact that getting rocks in your boots should not be possible. If there is a hole, you should get it repaired immediately", the Emperor retorted.
"Quasars... right..." Warp sighed.
"But, now the main target, the beginning of the new era where man and machine are united with the new power... Muhahahaaa! Rhaarh!" Zurg sprawled and opened the bar door.
Turning her head away, Zarah pouted to the nemesis.
"Well there, little lady, I am offering you the change of your life! Join me and we shall together build the darkest and most powerful empire ever, with your new invention!" Zurg bowed to her side, beginning with his usual strategy to get more forces to the dark side. How many times he had been able to turn the thoughts of aliens towards him by offering them glory. Alike in Warp's case.
But Zarah was not a piece of cake. There was no answer from her side; only she stared at the shadows.
"Well...? Are we making progress...?" Zurg became impatient after many silent minutes.
Now she got her mouth open and with her deep voice declared straight her opinion: "You can go to the lowest infernos with your honour and temptations you offer me. If you want to kill me, then fine. It's just the same for me, now. But supporting your tyranny won't succeed", flaming she concluded her opinion and spat on the helmet of Zurg.
The following outburst of anger of the Emperor was outrageous. He shrieked around and with his laser regard made the furthest wall of the cell charred. "You disagree with me? Like that? Oh, you are worse than Lightyear, the idiot that will not join me! You shall pay for your spitting, I shall get every little piece of information out of you with my methods. And I swear I shall get your stubborn mind open!"
Warp knocked his shoulder carefully. "Em, boss? What if you'll give her some time to think at first...?" He had got through a bit of his emotional shock, considering now more rationally. He knew exactly what were 'the methods' Zurg was going to use. And... he could possibly not think of seeing this little creature with that harrowing regard going trough one of those. Maybe... she would agree with time and be saved from the disgusting consequences.
Zurg panted in his wrath but agreed malcontent. "You, jackal of Star Command, you shall get 24 hours time to decide. But if you happen to be as much in wilfulness then, too..." he shook his metal finger in front of Zarah's nose.
"Worse than Lightyear! Worse than Lightyear! And that minx looked so easy to prevail upon!" Zurg growled and rushed around his throne.
"What about the other workers? Couldn't we possible get some information out of them...?" Warp asked, biting an energy protein bar.
"Exploding uranium, they are worthless! Pathetic clerks that only dig! Hey-hoo, hey-hoo, it is the Miss Snow White who is the most important part! Cannot you understand that, Darkmatter? Did not you listen to the conversation she went through with that silly Nebula? She was the one that was asked to lead the enterprise because the workers were so ignorant! The workmen are then useful when she is leading them, by izzards and zetas!"
Warp left the main hall silently. So... everything depended now on the woman. What was her name... Choi? He rooted his pocket awhile and took a flat plastic case forth. This item was rapidly taken out of Zarah's luggage as he had thought it to contain possible information disks or relevant digital information. But it was filled with something else, something that still made him grap it along.
It was a little personal, electronic palm book of hers, something that did not contain her work-life matters at all. It was all about herself, actually a kind of a diary. Warp had been reading it for a while today and nearly shocked to see the tragic and murky thoughts that had been written into it. Poems and scribbles that handled death and suffering, scanned charcoal drawings along with a couple of holo-pictures of its owner and her some occasional acquaintances were the embodies.
He creaked open the door of Zurg's 'living room', where he sometimes used to spend his pauses. He did not feel it now necessary to get into his own apartment, as after a couple of hours he would take some mission flight again to a nearby planet. However now he decided to relax this way.
He flopped down into an armchair and typed the opening codes of the palm book. The alien went a couple of subdirectories through with the program manager and opened a 3D-image of the girl. It had been taken only a couple of weeks ago in some warm place, in the summertime. Possibly this was picturing some park on Capital Planet. Zarah was sitting on a riverbank, her city speeder parked beside. She had a nice, dark-denim dress on; she seemed to laugh at something. So... she looked like this when she was in high spirits. He had only seen the fear and the odium, but the emotions of this image were even more powerful than those. It actually made him smirk and a warm waft filled his heart. But it turned to a touch of a cold finger, as he in a flash recalled what was her state now and what would succeed if she would not obey Zurg.
"I hope she's witty enough to switch the side..." he thought it over and admitted that it would be quite nice to consider her as his new partner. "She's a babe, would be rippin' to have some female company here..." he cheered at himself, leaning his back against the soft backrest.
But then the veracity was there again, bitter and crude. She was such a personality that possibly would not be turned to the dark side. Moreover the consequences of the refusal... Suddenly Warp felt sick in his stomach. He pushed away the snack plate he had had in front of him, gulping the nauseous-tasting liquids that were tumulting up from his inners.